


A King's Ransom

by thetamehistorian



Series: All Things In Balance [5]
Category: The Mandalorian (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Aphasia, Attempted Seduction to the Dark Side, Canon-Typical Violence, Explicit Language, F/M, Fluff, Force-Sensitive Din Djarin, Found Family, Gen, Good Parent Din Djarin, Hurt/Comfort, Manda-lore, Mandalorian Culture, The Darksaber
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-05
Updated: 2020-10-29
Packaged: 2021-03-06 18:22:36
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 9
Words: 35,492
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26303380
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thetamehistorian/pseuds/thetamehistorian
Summary: Din thought it was all over.He'd found his son’s people - or at least, information about them.He'd finally understood the Force.A call from the covert changes everything.Between the light and the dark, there is balance.The final work in the Forces Beyond Our Control series.
Relationships: Din Djarin/Marin Kabrii (OC)
Series: All Things In Balance [5]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1604062
Comments: 175
Kudos: 420





	1. The Message

**Author's Note:**

> Here it is at long last - the final part of the Forces AU as it's become known. Din is no longer an oblivious idiot, now he's just an idiot. But we love him anyway.  
> This is direct (and I mean direct) sequel to 'That Which You Seek', if you haven't read that story, parts of this might not make sense. :)  
> Just as an FYI, there are hints of Din/OC in this story - for that you can blame a couple of people on coffee's discord server for planting ideas in my head.  
> 
> 
> I post occassionally on [Tumblr](https://thetamehistorian.tumblr.com/)  
> Catch me hanging out on CoffeeQuill's Discord  
> Enjoy!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As always, Mando'a translations can be found on hover or in the end notes of each chapter.

Din woke to the feeling of a small warm body wriggling into the gap between his helmet and his shoulder and the much more intimate feeling of a familiar mind brushing up against his own.

This in itself wasn’t unusual. What was, was the feeling of claws digging into his shirt and shaking him, and the rush of emotion from another mind, an imprint of fear and uncertainty.

“ _Ad’ika_?” he asked, reaching up to steady his son, mind blinking straight into alertness in response to a potential threat.

“ _Buir_ ,” Riye said, uncertain but not actually afraid, “stranger.”

Din’s eyes snapped open and he pushed himself upright in a smooth movement, one hand still curled protectively around Riye. His neck protested the movement. It had been a while since he had slept with the helmet on, what with Riye being family and the rest of the village having proved respectful enough not to enter without knocking. He’d grown comfortable sleeping with it just within reach.

With the sleepiness sharply fading away, it took him a moment to remember exactly why he had slept with the helmet on.

Sure enough, curled up in the corner and watching them warily, was a small blue-skinned Twi’lek child. Her eyes were wide as she tracked his movements.

“Ah,” he said, dropping the tension. “I see.”

Riye had evidently woken to find an unexpected person in the room and had sought reassurance. He glanced outside and saw the sun just beginning to rise. He must have had a lot of sugar to sleep that well and for that long, especially with an unfamiliar force presence in the room.

“ _Buir_ ,” Riye whined at the lack of response, his ears dropping.

“It’s ok.” He stroked an ear absentmindedly in comfort and sat properly on the side of the bed. “This is Alema.”

Riye and Alema regarded each other, wary. It was a recognised ritual that Din had seen take place many a time when the covert had adopted a new child, a way of measuring up the new arrival.

With Riye still held securely, he reached out a hand towards Alema, beckoning and doing his best to calm his mind into a welcoming and friendly aura. Despite the progress they had made with Alema whilst getting her off Malastare, he knew to tread carefully. He’d been much the same after all, in the days after losing his own family.

Slowly, Alema pulled herself to her feet. There was no obvious pain in the movement. Marin must have convinced her to see the healers.

When her small fingers settled on his, he pulled her gently up to rest against his other side.

“Alema,” he said softly, “this is my son, Riye.”

His words had the intended effect and Alema relaxed marginally next to him. Riye, he knew, would require a different approach. His son had become so used to having sole rights to him that he’d have to learn to share, at least until he could find a suitable home for Alema.

With a reassuring squeeze, he let go of her hand and turned to his son.

“Riye, this is Alema.” His son was projecting a confusing mix of emotions and Din did his best to parse through them and pick up on the important ones. Fear, yes, apprehension, curiosity, a little jealousy. “She was being chased, like you were. Do you remember? This is all very new to her; can you help her?”

He hoped highlighting a similarity between their experiences would help Riye relate and the children bond. To his immense relief, it seemed to work.

Alema brightened at the realisation that she wasn’t the only person to have gone through that sort of experience and Riye slowly lowered his guard, reassured that Alema wasn’t here to replace him. He could sense the children tentatively reaching for each other with the force.

When there was no immediate clash, he placed Riye down and stood up, stretching out sore muscles.

“I need to go and see Marin,” he said. “Are you two going to be alright?”

He got twin nods in reply and, with a quick prayer to the Mandalorian gods and ancestors, he left to find Marin and hoped he’d still have an intact house to return to.

Marin was out on the edge of the town, practicing her katas. Rather than interrupt her flow, he stood and watched, slightly in awe of the grace behind her movements. He wasn’t too bad at the katas himself these days, what little training he’d had in sword-work had been an immense help in catching him up with his peers.

Still, he wasn’t sure he’d ever achieve the flow that Marin had, each move leading flawlessly into the next.

The set was coming to an end, so he began to approach. Marin lingered on the final extension before relaxing and exhaling a soft breath, lowering her saberstaff.

“Good morning, Din,” she greeted.

“I didn’t mean to disturb you.”

“You didn’t,” Marin said, eyes soft as she took him in. “You’re up early.”

“Riye wasn’t too keen on waking up to a strange person in the room.”

“Ah,” Marin nodded, “they’re ok?”

“They seem to be getting on alright for now,” he said, “although Riye is going to have to learn to share, at least for now.”

Marin smiled. “Good luck with that.”

“Thanks,” he said, letting some sarcasm drip into the words and got a teasing elbow to his side for his trouble. “Any luck finding a guardian for her?”

“Not yet, I’m afraid. I’d rather she was with another Twi’lek family if possible, or someone with the experience to look after her. Unfortunately, our only Twi’lek’s already have three children to cope with. I’ll start asking around later, see if we can’t find a temporary home for her.”

“I appreciate it.”

“How is Alema, by the way?”

Din frowned. “Physically she seems fine, her leg wasn’t causing her any trouble this morning.”

“Good.”

“I don’t think it’s really sunk in for her yet.”

“Shock, most likely,” Marin offered. “From the bonds breaking. It’s always traumatic, her mind will be working out how to cope.”

From her tone of voice, he could tell Marin was speaking from experience.

“Is there anything I can do to help her?”

“New connections can ease the hurt,” Marin said. “It’s helps to know that you’re not alone.”

Din thought of the way Riye and Alema had reached out to connect in the force. Perhaps it was good that they had, maybe they could help each other. After all, Din was Riye’s only true bond and, well, he wasn’t going to be around forever. He suspected Marin had something of a connection with his son too, which helped. He didn’t think he could bear that burden alone.

Now, Riye had Alema, and Alema had them, if she needed them.

“You’re good with them,” Marin said, resting against the fence and watching over the village. Din joined her, letting the comforting warmth of her presence wash over him. Sometimes he wondered if there wasn’t the beginnings of a bond between them, even if Marin had never mentioned it.

Tentatively, he sought out the bond he had with Riye. He found it with ease, strong and golden and warm in his mind. He gave it a gentle poke and got an affectionate poke in return, and playfulness. Hopefully that meant he would still have a home to return to.

Casting out into the force, he searched to see if he had managed to form any other connections and to his surprise, there was one, weak and thready, but there. The presence wrapped through the bond was exactly as he had suspected.

Marin had warned him that connections did tend to form between teacher and student but he found that he didn’t mind it at all. If anything, part of him wanted it to be stronger.

“You’re not so bad yourself.”

She nudged him again for that. “Don’t kid yourself. I’m a rubbish babysitter and I know it. I just don’t have the patience for it. Teaching? Yes, but dealing with toddlers? Not my strong point.”

“I think you’re selling yourself short. You coped with Riye, didn’t you?”

“Just,” Marin laughed, “I wasn’t sure you’d let me look after him again considering the sugar rush.”

“It could have been worse,” Din said and they both sobered quite abruptly.

Marin rarely talked about her past, but he got glimpses, every now and then, in her eyes. He reckoned they both knew precisely how bad it could be. He’d been lucky, he suspected, to have been found by the Mandalorians and for his abilities to have been kept quiet. He knew Marin was older than him by a few years. He couldn’t imagine what it must have been like to be young and force sensitive at the height of the war, and then, if the rumours were right, to be force sensitive and hiding during the time of Imperial rule.

He dropped his gaze and found that Marin’s hand was resting near his own. Impulsively he reached out and took it in his own. She startled at the touch but before he could pull away, he felt her fingers tighten in return.

For a minute or two, they stood there, watching the sun rise over the village, a place of peace, hard won.

Giving her time to pull away, he gently poked at the new bond, reaching out to her. There was a pause, a moment of tension, and then like a flood, her force presence enveloped him. It was an intimacy that he had never quite understood before this moment, to know someone like this.

It was like seeing into their very soul.

“What is this?” he asked softly, aloud.

Marin’s presence faded away, pulling back but not retreating completely. He found that he missed it. He could tell she was struggling to order her thoughts.

Eventually, she turned to face him properly. She didn’t let go of his hand and he figured that must be a good sign.

“Whatever you want it to be,” she said.

He looked into her eyes, open and earnest.

“What about what you want?”

In response, she squeezed his hand. “Whatever you’re willing to give.”

Din took a moment to work through the offer and through his own feelings. He’d never really felt this way before, it was confusing. Before, he’d always pushed people away, afraid of them getting hurt, but then he’d found Riye and Riye had led him to Cara and Greef and Marin and suddenly he had more friends than he’d ever had before. He was still learning, he knew, still had trouble letting people in. It was easier with some than others.

Cara was like a sister to him now. Marin was something else entirely.

Slowly, he reached up, cupping the back of Marin’s head and tipped his head until their foreheads were resting together. He had never explained the significance of this part of Mandalorian culture but judging by the way she tensed and then relaxed into it, she understood the intent.

They might have stayed like that for some time, had the sound of running footsteps approaching not drawn them apart.

Cara rounded the corner just in time to catch sight of their intwined fingers before they slipped apart and Din resigned himself to an interrogation in the near future when Cara’s gaze lingered between them.

Her expression wasn’t tense or worried, so it couldn’t be anything dangerous, but it was clear that it was urgent, or Cara would have waited.

“What is it?” he asked, bracing himself.

“Din,” she said as she caught her breath, “there’s a message, in the Crest. It’s from the covert.”

His chest tightened as his mind began to run through the possibilities, each worse than its predecessor. The panic built up and he was moving before he even knew it.

“Marin, I –“

“It’s ok. Go,” Marin urged, giving him a gentle push towards the field where the Razor Crest was stationed.

He ran.

By the time Cara caught up with him, he was slumped on the pilot’s chair, helmeted head in his hands.

He heard her steps come to an abrupt halt halfway up the ladder as she caught sight of him, the sharp gasp as she took in his posture and assumed the worst.

“Din?”

He raised his head, still overwhelmed by what he had heard. Of all the things he had imagined, this had been the last. He had been ready, he thought, for anything. On the run over he’d been inwardly berating himself for getting complacent, for staying away too long with every force-enhanced step.

It was, he had thought, impossible. It was a miracle.

“Din!” Cara’s voice was sharper now. “Talk to me.”

“They’ve found them,” he said, hating how his voice trembled.

Cara was on alert, already reaching towards the corner where her weapons were kept. It warmed him, how quickly she moved to his people’s defence.

“Who found them? Imps? Those guys on Malastare?”

“Mandalorians.”

Cara jerked to a stop, hand brushing the grip of a rifle.

“What?”

He turned to face her properly, feeling like a bundle of nerves, excited nerves at that. His cheeks hurt from the grin that he couldn’t seem to stop.

“More Mandalorians, Cara. Another tribe.”

Cara let her hands drop away from the weapons and leant against the wall, staring at him. She knew, she had to know what this meant to him. If anyone would know, it was her.

“Well, I’ll be damned.”

“It’s been so long, too long, since we heard from any other tribes, we thought, feared, that we might be the last ones.”

It had been a while since he felt this jittery and the words tumbled out fast, almost falling over each other in his haste. Across from him, Cara broke into a smile.

“Din, that’s, that’s wonderful news!”

Quite without warning, he found himself held in a firm embrace and he held her back, letting some of the excess adrenaline seep away into the force.

“Was that what the message said, then?”

He hummed an affirmative and felt Cara’s arm briefly tighten before she released him. In the back of his mind, he felt the gentlest of tugs on the newest bond, a hint of concern, and responded with the all-consuming joy he’d felt at hearing the news.

“So,” Cara said, settling into the co-pilots chair. Her chair now. “What are you going to do?”

“The _alor_ , the Armourer, said that this other tribe had run into some trouble. They have wounded, but nothing serious. Mostly they just needed a place to lay low for a bit.”

“Well, you guys have certainly got the laying low down to an art form.”

Din chuckled. “The _alor_ wants to get a welcoming committee together, extra supplies, firepower if needed.”

__

“I guess they’ll be wanting you then.”

__

“Technically, I’m still the covert’s _beroya_ , other tribes would be expecting me to be there. Besides, we got a tidy profit from the Malastare job. If they need anything.”

__

“You’re planning on going then.”

__

“Of course.”

__

Cara nodded with a firmness that suggested she hadn’t been expecting anything else, but it was obvious that something was troubling her.

__

“Will I still be welcome?”

__

“You’ll always be welcome, the Armourer made that clear,” Din said, frowning. He wondered if this was the source of her hesitation. He had hoped, by now, that Cara would consider the Crest her home and hated that she might still feel as though she might be turned away, or left behind. The thought hadn’t even crossed his mind. When he said he was planning to go, he was referring to them, all of them. “Besides, the Crest is your home, you’re practically family, and frankly I can’t look after both Riye and Alema on my own, so if any of them have a problem with it, they’ll have to take it up with me.”

__

Cara raised an eyebrow but shrugged and accepted his words, but something he had said must have touched her.

__

“Family, huh?” she asked, breaking the silence.

__

“I may have called you aunt Cara in front of Riye,” he admitted weakly.

__

The look on her face broke and settled into that easy smile he had grown to love.

__

“You big softie.”

__

He pretended to be insulted, and their conversation quickly dissolved into a playful tussle.

__

“Do you want to come?” he asked, pinned down against the cockpit floor beneath a victorious Cara. “I didn’t mean to assume.”

__

Cara shook her head with a grin and let him up. “More Mandalorians? I wouldn’t miss it for the world. You explaining why you’re suddenly running away to your girlfriend though…”

__

“She’s not my girlfriend,” he protested with a sigh.

__

Cara quirked an eyebrow as he took hold of her offered hand and pulled himself back to his feet but he didn’t respond. He got the feeling he’d better get used to this new source of teasing and would rather avoid it for as long as possible.

__

As he scrambled down the ladder and began to walk back to the village he was fairly sure he heard Cara mutter behind him.

__

“Not your girlfriend? Yeah, right.”

__

The house was still standing when they got back and Riye and Alema were sat on the floor playing catch with one of Riye’s toys. They weren’t talking much, at least not out loud, but then again, Riye didn’t really have the vocabulary to hold full conversations yet.

__

“ _Buir_?” Riye asked before he’d even stepped inside, sensing something important had happened.

__

Din scooped him up and let his settle on his shoulder. “How do you feel about visiting the covert?”

__

__

It took them a few hours to pack all they would need from the house. Din hadn’t realised quite how settled they had become until he was scrabbling under the bed searching for a missing datapadd.

__

“Have you found the scarf?” Cara asked from somewhere behind him.

__

“It’s in with the blankets.”

__

Finally, he caught hold of a corner and pulled the padd out. It was a bit dusty, and needed charging, but it wasn’t broken so he tucked it into his pack.

__

They had given Alema a bag into which he had seen Cara slip a Sabacc set when she thought they weren’t looking and a couple of families had offered spare clothes and a few toys for her so Alema was clutching it close as she watched them pack.

__

They had decided to bring her along for now as Marin hadn’t been able to find a home for her yet and she already had tentative bonds with both him and Riye. The last thing Din wanted to do was remove the shaky support system she had in them. He wasn’t too worried about the covert. They were, after all, used to dealing with children from difficult backgrounds, so he expected they’d cope fine with Alema until they could return to Nova, and they’d accepted Riye’s powers well enough.

__

“Do you need anything else?” Marin asked from the doorway.

__

“I think we’ve got everything,” Cara said. “Thank you for your help.”

__

“It’s no problem,” Marin said, picking up Riye before he could get into one of the boxes.

__

Cara stepped back and admired the pile of belongings on the hovercart. It was going to be a squeeze in the Crest with the four of them, that was for sure, but they’d manage. It was only for a few days after all.

__

“Come here you little troublemaker,” Cara said, taking Riye from Marin’s arms with ease and perching on the back of the cart next to Alema. “Are you going to be good for Aunt Cara?”

__

Riye babbled happily and tried to grab her nose.

__

“I’ll take that as a no,” Din joked.

__

“Quiet, you,” Cara said with a cheeky grin. “We’ll go on ahead, give you two a moment.”

__

He wanted to complain, but she’d got the droid to start moving and they were around the corner before he could formulate a response.

__

Marin watched them go with a raised brow.

__

“Dare I ask what that was about?”

__

“Cara saw us earlier.”

__

“She’s perceptive.”

__

“Annoyingly so.”

__

Marin turned to lean against the wall of the house that had been his for the past few months and Din drew his attention back towards her.

__

“Sorry, I know this is sudden.”

__

Marin waved off his apology. “This is important to you. I understand why you have to go. One day, maybe you’ll tell me why.”

__

He felt a flush rising up his neck, aware that there was still a lot that Marin didn’t know about his culture, whilst he had learned a great deal about hers during their talks.

__

“You’re important to me too.” Her expression softened at that, lips twitching. “I don’t know how long we’ll be away.”

__

This time, it was Marin that made the first move and took his hand. “You have my comm,” she said and followed it up with a gentle brush of the fledgling bond, an unheard ‘and this’.

__

“I’ll stay in touch,” he said.

__

Marin nodded and then moved. There was the lightest brush of lips against beskar, right over his cheek.

__

“Come back in one piece, that’s all I ask.”

__

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Mando'a translations:  
> ad'ika - little one / son / daughter  
> buir - father / mother / parent  
> alor - leader / chief  
> beroya - bounty hunter


	2. The Creed

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Din returns home.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's all kicking off - though maybe not in the way Din was expecting.  
> 

It took two days of living with four people on the Razor Crest for Din to decide that, if this was going to be a regular thing, he needed a bigger ship.

The Crest had never been designed to house more than one bounty hunter and up to ten carbonite slabs – and it hadn’t until he’d taken a contract he shouldn’t have and his son burst into his life. Riye, thankfully, was small enough that his bed fit at the end of Din’s own bunk and generally, he didn’t take up much room. His growing collection of toys and trinkets posed a problem occasionally but it was nothing a stern look and a storage box couldn’t solve. Of course, learning to look after and raise him had been another trial entirely.

Then Cara had started to travel with them. She had made herself a bunk by the armoury - well, it was more a hammock than a bunk - but it folded away nicely when she wasn’t using it so it hadn’t taken up any extra space and Cara herself spent most of her time in a few places on the ship, mainly the co-pilot chair, from which she could harass him with the greatest ease.

Finding room for Alema for the trip had proved tricky. In the end, Cara had given up her own bed and made a sort of nest on the floor which was all well and good for a few days but if this was going to be a common situation, it wouldn’t do, no matter how used Cara was to sleeping wherever she could.

Even though they had only added one small child to the ship’s occupancy Din seemed to be constantly tripping over people or toys and the lack of room wasn’t helped by the frequent disagreements between Riye and Alema, who then went out of their way to avoid each other.

Din found himself dealing with more than one tantrum, which only made him want to reach the covert sooner. At the covert, there were other adults with experience handling tricky toddlers and he was beginning to realise that he desperately needed their advice.

Despite all of this, the cramped conditions and the arguments, they somehow managed to make their planned pit stops, first at one of Nova’s trading posts to stock up on goods and supplies for the covert and then on a nearby planet to refuel for the rest of the trip to Bakura. Once the cargo hold was full to bursting, Din found that on top of everything else he also had his work cut out trying to keep two force-sensitive and curious children away from things they really shouldn’t be playing with.

So, Din wouldn’t deny that he was quite relieved when they dropped out of hyperspace and Bakura came into view, bringing with it the reassurance that the end was in sight.

“Have this other tribe already arrived?” Cara asked, hovering behind him in the cockpit.

“No, they’re still a few hours away according to the Armourer. They’ve had mechanical problems.”

“Oh good,” said Cara, “we’ve got time to set up the welcome party then.”

Din twisted in his seat to stare at her.

“You just want an excuse to break out the booze.”

“Guilty as charged.”

Din sighed. Out of the corner of his eye he could see Alema staring at the planet from the co-pilot seat with her treasured sabacc cards clutched in her hands. Riye, held firmly in his lap, had finally stopped trying to reach the controls, apparently captivated by the sight of the planet in front of them.

“You do realise you’re never getting those cards back, don’t you?” he murmured, tilting his head towards Alema.

Cara sighed. “I blame you, I told you that you’d created a menace.”

Before Din could protest his innocence, the comm beeped, alerting them to a message from the covert with the co-ordinates for landing. Hopefully, they’d be closer to the Mandalorian base than last time. Din didn’t really fancy lugging the supplies any great distance after the last few days.

At the back of his mind, he could feel Riye becoming more excited as he realised where they were.

“Yeah,” Din said softly as he reached for the controls to guide them in to land. “I’m sure they’ve missed you too.”

The Razor Crest touched down only a few hundred meters away from the entrance to the caves. Din took one look at the cargo hold as they were preparing to leave and decided that, as they were so close, he might as well get some help from the covert. They were, after all, going to be the ones using all this stuff.

With Riye in his sling and Cara leading Alema by the hand, Din lead the way into the hideout. Paz wasn’t on duty, which made getting past the guard post much smoother. Judging by the way the young Mandalorian on guard stammered through the greeting and jumped aside, not even questioning Cara’s presence, the tales of his fight with Gideon were still doing the rounds.

As they drew closer to the sounds of hammering at the forge, which hadn’t bothered Din since his strange experience in the caves on Nova, he felt himself fully relax for the first time in a long time.

He was home.

Din hadn’t quite understood how much he had missed, how long he’d been away until he led his small entourage into the main room and was promptly mobbed by the children, all of whom were bigger and taller than he remembered.

“ _Beroya_!”

“Can we play?”

“ _Su'cuy_!”

He could hear Cara barely restraining her laughter as he was surrounded on all sides by the foundlings talking over each other, clamouring for his attention. At the back of the group, he could even see Olia, the Armourer’s _ad_ , who usually shied away from large groups of people.

“ _Su cuy'gar_ ,” he greeted fondly, opening his hand to reveal the sweets he had picked up on Nova.

His offering was enthusiastically accepted. In his arms, Riye was bouncing and making grabby hands towards the gathering, recognising his old playmates. Din had to put up a shield lest the force of his excitement overwhelm him.

“Calm,” he part-soothed, part-warned his son as he placed him down into the eager group. “There’s no rush.”

Riye was immediately swept away across the room into a game with most of the children. Only Tycho stayed behind, awkwardly hovering. The young teen had finally hit his growth spurt and now came up to Din’s shoulders.

“ _Su'cuy_ ,” Tycho said, and Din was pleased to see how the young teen had matured over the last few months. “Do you need any help?”

“Thank you, Tycho,” he said. “I must meet with the Armourer. Could you gather a group to help move the supplies from the Crest?”

Tycho nodded and rushed off towards the gathering of adults at the back of the room.

He imagined it wouldn’t be long before the Armourer started working on Tycho’s _buy’ce_. He was nearly old enough now to take the Creed, and he was more than competent as the covert’s medic-in-training.

But before Din could make his way over to the Armourer, he found his way blocked by the bulk of Paz Vizsla.

“Paz,” he greeted, coolly.

The covert’s commander had been acting strangely around him since Gideon’s death. If Din didn’t know better, he’d have said that Paz was avoiding him, but Paz wasn’t the sort of avoid his problems. Equally, he wasn’t the type to give in to jealousy or envy, although Din imagined that the sudden, almost hero worship attention he was receiving from some members of the covert must be grating on the _al'verde_.

He had wondered, briefly, if Paz knew about him, had somehow learned about his connection to the Force. They hadn’t been able to keep Riye’s powers hidden during that week with the covert after Gideon’s death, they were too much a part of him, so most of the covert knew what Riye could do and they had mostly accepted it, even Paz. Riye was, after all, a foundling.

Din suspected Paz might not be quite so dispassionate about his own secret.

“Djarin,” Paz replied in a similar tone. “I see the _aruetii_ is still with you.”

Din forced down the urge to bristle on Cara’s behalf. He knew that Paz didn’t mean it as an insult, he was merely stating a fact. Cara was an outsider.

“We are here at the Armourer’s invitation,” he said. “All of us.”

“So it seems.”

For a moment they stood there, sizing each other up, but there was still something about Paz’s behaviour that didn’t add up. Din was about to ask Paz to kindly step aside when a new voice spoke up.

“You’re blue.”

He didn’t jump, but it was a near thing. He’d almost forgotten about Alema, half hidden behind Cara’s legs, her force presence muted and overwhelmed in his perception by Riye.

Paz leant around him to see where the new voice had come from and Din found himself tensing again, worried that he would have to step in as Alema shrank back a little from the shadow of the large Mandalorian.

He didn’t need to.

Paz spotted the child and slowly knelt down on one knee in front of Alema, a hand held out in welcome.

“You’re right _ad’ika_ , my armour is blue,” he said, voice soft.

Slowly Alema re-emerged from behind Cara and, when neither of them moved to intervene or stop her, reached out to take his hand.

“We match,” she said, as blue skin met blue paint.

“We do,” Paz confirmed solemnly.

“Din.”

They all turned as, from behind them, the Armourer approached, her work at the forge finished for now.

“ _Alor_ ,” he greeted.

The Armourer’s helmet moved, tilting, as her gaze went from him, to Cara, to Alema and Paz, who were now engaged in quiet conversation.

“A new foundling?” she asked.

“Not exactly,” he said. The helmet titled further in question. “It’s complicated.”

“I see,” the Armourer said. “Come, I sense we have much discuss.”

Din hesitated, looking back, but he needn’t have worried. The covert had accepted his misfit clan with ease. Riye was now fully engaged in the latest game with the children, Alema was being towards the kitchen by Paz of all people and even as he watched, Cara was dragged into a debate about weapon efficiency by one of the lieutenants.

With a sigh and a smile, he followed the Armourer to the privacy of her rooms.

“I take it your time with Marin has proved fruitful?”

Between then, on the wall over the table, the darksaber sat in the beskar brackets designed precisely for the purpose. On the table lay his own saber, no longer brand new but worn and scarred from battle, and a pile of credits. Without the blade ignited, the saber did not appear especially threatening, yet the Armourer was treating it with appropriate caution, aware of the damage it was capable of, just as she had the darksaber.

“It has,” he said.

“You are able to use the power of the _jetii_?”

Din knew that she wasn’t asking whether or not he was capable of using the Force. She had seen him do that as a child, had told him as much at their last meeting. This was less a question of use and more a question of control.

“Yes. Would you like a demonstration?” he said.

“No,” the Armourer replied after a moment, although she could not hide the note of curiosity in her voice. “Your word is sufficient.” Din nodded, though he could not stop himself briefly touching upon the bond with Riye. “What of the Twi’lek child? You claim she is not a foundling.”

There was a warning in those words, a reminder of the duty of all Mandalorians who found children not to abandon them to their fate, but instead to adopt and care for them.

“Alema is like Riye,” he said. “Like me.”

The Armourer settled back into her seat a little as his revelation sunk in. “You feel she would be better off with her own people?”

“Riye is a special case,” he said with a shrug. “He is powerful, but accepted, because he is young, comparatively. Alema is older, more prone to accidental misuse of the Force.” Or at least, that was how Marin had described it to him. “She needs tutoring.”

“And yet, you brought her with you.”

Din sighed. He still wasn’t quite sure why he had done so, beyond the vague sense that at the moment they were the only stable things in her life, that they were helping her hold herself together.

“She was being hunted,” he explained. Across from him, the Armourer sucked in a breath, affronted at the very thought. “We don’t know what happened, exactly, beyond that her family died trying to protect her. I think that she, whether intentionally or not, killed some of her attackers with the Force before we found her. When we got there, she was alone and traumatised. She trusts us for now, but I’m not sure if the D’ai are the right people to look after her.”

“She reminds you of yourself,” the Armourer commented. It wasn’t a question and, as much as it hurt to think, it wasn’t wrong either. “You believe she needs people who understand her experience.”

He thought about it for a moment and realised that actually, that was exactly what he had thought, he just hadn’t had the words. “Yes.”

The Armourer hummed.

“It is a difficult decision,” she said. “It is always hard to know what is best for a child. Especially one who has already faced much hardship.” Her words reassured him greatly. “Perhaps, though, it is a decision best left for another time. For now, I will instruct the covert to treat her as though she were a foundling and we shall see how she does.”

Din bowed his head in acknowledgement. It was a good, if temporary, solution.

“I have also brought supplies, for the covert and the new tribe.”

“Your support is appreciated.”

“I wasn’t sure what they needed but I tried to cover all possibilities,” he admitted, sheepish. “Did they mention anything to you?”

“Only that they had wounded, and that their ships had been damaged in a fight.”

“Hence the mechanical issues.”

“Indeed.”

Upon his arrival at the covert, it had been obvious that the overwhelming response to hearing news of another tribe of Mandalorians had been relief and excitement. Din had expected the Armourer to respond similarly. He knew that the burden of leadership had not been easy on her in such a difficult period and had assumed that she would be glad to hear of other survivors who might be able to assist in the rebuilding of the Mandalorian way of life.

Now, sat opposite her and alone, he found to his surprise that, newly enhanced by his increasingly knowledge of the Force, he could sense that relief was far from what the Armourer was feeling.

“Forgive me if I am overstepping,” he said slowly, “but I can’t help but notice that you seem nervous. Is there cause for concern?”

The Armourers gaze on him was sharp, though her lack of denial was equally damning. Instead of responding, she stood and began to pace back and forth. That, as much as anything, was testament to her unease.

“The tribe that raised you and many others in this covert were traditionalists. This you know.”

“I do.”

“Not all tribes had the same interpretation of the Creed, nor the same opinion of the _jetii_ and their abilities.”

He felt his throat tighten at the implications of her words.

“Do you think Riye might be in danger?”

“No,” she replied firmly. “Riye is a foundling. The covert will protect him with their lives, even against another tribe.”

“Then Alema –”

“I do not think Alema will be at risk. The covert does not know of her abilities and they do not need to know. Will you know if she is having trouble controlling herself?”

“Yes,” he replied, thinking of the fluctuations Marin had taught him to recognise in her own force presence. “Although I’m not sure what I can do about it.”

He made a mental note to ask Marin for advice.

“We will deal with it if and when it arises,” the Armourer decided. “I do not need to ask you to keep your own abilities quiet, I take it?”

“No,” he said. He knew very well how some Mandalorians felt about anyone showing _jetii_ powers. Until a few years ago, he had been one of them. His gaze lingered on the weapon on the table. “Should I leave my saber here?”

The Armourer hesitated. “No, bring it with you and keep it hidden.”

He nodded and reached for his saber, clipping it to his belt so that it was hidden by his cloak, hiding in the movement his apprehension that the Armourer might be anticipating hostilities.

“What about the darksaber?” he asked. “I might not know its history, but it’s clearly important.”

“The darksaber has a long, confusing, and bloody heritage,” the Armourer explained. “It has caused wars and chasms amongst our people as much as it has united them. Until we know more about our guests, I think it is best if we kept some things to ourselves, the darksaber amongst them.”

Din absorbed the information with some trepidation.

What exactly had he uncovered when he recovered the mystical weapon from Moff Gideon?

Across from him the Armourer stopped pacing and leant heavily against the table. “We must be prepared for anything, Din.”

There was a weight to her words, an implication. He wasn’t sure he liked it.

He swallowed at the responsibility she was putting on him. He suspected the Armourer had not confided like this in anyone else in a long time. That she would call on him now was enough to spur him to finally ask the question that had been on his mind since the start of their talk.

“Why me? Why not Paz?”

The Armourer once again took a moment to gather her words and when she spoke, they were not what he had expected.

“You adopted a child that many would consider an enemy and chose to raise him as your own. You were able to reconcile your own connection to the Force with your commitment as a Mandalorian. You have built friendships with individuals from many walks of life outside of the covert. I don’t think you realise how singular you are, Din Djarin.” Well, he had no idea how to respond to that. The Armourer crossed her arms. “I do not know how this meeting will go, but I may need someone by my side who is capable of looking past prejudices and preconceptions. I think we both know that that person is not Paz.”

Before Din could reply, agree, or protest, there was a knock on the door, precise and final and accompanied by two shouted words that brought their conversation abruptly to an end.

“They’re here!”

The ships landing by the Razor Crest were battered and bruised. They were a medley of old and new, big and small. Din estimated that they would be capable of carrying somewhere around thirty Mandalorians, more if they had foundlings with them. More than they had expected or hoped.

The representatives of the Nevarro covert stood together, clustered around the Armourer. Din and Paz were flanking her in their roles as the _al’verde_ and _beroya_ , along with the other more senior Mandalorians, and behind them, Aikan and Tycho were preparing to receive and care for any injured.

With a hiss of escaping air from the hydraulics, the first Mandalorians began to disembark. The sight of familiar armour was enough to send a ripple of excitement through the gathered welcome committee, only the Armourer remained unfazed.

Din watched as those able began to help the wounded leave the ships, but his attention was distracted by the approaching Mandalorian in scuffed armour, the first person to leave the ships. He observed the way the other Mandalorian’s deferred to them, they had to be the designated leader, this tribe’s _alor_.

They stopped in front of them, a few meters away, their posture one of wariness and anticipation.

“ _Su'cuy ner vode_.” the man in the armour said and with his words, the atmosphere thickened in recognition.

The Armourer stepped forward in greeting. “ _Olarom , vod_.”

“ _Gedeteyar , alor_.”

Beside him, another member of the new tribe appeared, falling into line with him as they engaged in further pleasantries. It was all going smoothly and Din began to let his guard relax. Or at least it was all going smoothly until one of the newcomers, in a casual and clearly practiced move, reached up and pulled off their helmet, revealing the face of a young woman.

The reaction was immediate and instinctual. Din tensed and he felt the line of the Nevarro covert stiffen, hands edging suddenly towards weapons.

“ _Dar'manda_ ,” Paz hissed beside him, too quiet for anyone but him to hear.

It was a shock and Din might have responded similarly to Paz, only something else caught his attention that was, to him, even more worrying than the blatant disregard for the Creed.

There were scorch marks on their armour, familiar scorch marks. The same marks had decorated his own armour after his duel with Gideon. There was only one thing in the systems that could leave marks like that on beskar.

A lightsaber.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Mando'a translations:  
> su'cuy - hi  
> ad - child/son/daughter  
> buy’ce - helmet  
> su'cuy ner vode - good to see you still alive my brothers/sisters  
> dar'manda - a state of not being Mandalorian - one who has lost his heritage, and so his identity and his soul - regarded with absolute dread by most traditional-minded Mandalorians


	3. The Compromise

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Truths come out and resolution comes from unexpected quarters.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ok - this chapter was a wild ride. We're dealing with lore on Mandalorian history in the Clone Wars and clan politics here, I guess you could say we're dealing with... Manda-lore?  
> (I'll show myself out)
> 
> I also take some WILD liberties with clan politics and the Armourer's backstory here, just so you know. Please be gentle with me.

Whilst Din was reeling from that particular revelation, the others were not so stunned and so in the moments following the unexpected removal of the helmet a great many things happened.

Paz and a number of the Nevarro Mandalorians went from fairly relaxed to firmly on their guard and the change in atmosphere was enough to put the freshly arrived Mandalorians back into fight mode.

“What did you say?” the women, the one without the helmet, challenged.

“I said,” Paz repeated, louder and with vitriol, not the sort to back down, “ _dar'manda_.”

That really didn’t help the situation. All along both lines, Din could see hands inching towards weapons and his own hand twitched briefly towards where his saber was hooked, but he figured pulling it out now, knowing that these people had been attacked by someone else with a saber, would be a decidedly bad move.

Still, if it came to it, he’d be willing to use it to defend his tribe. Even against other Mandalorians.

“Traditionists,” the man, their leader, spat. “I should have known.”

“Watch your words, _utreekov_.”

The woman stepped forward as she spoke. She was angry, he could see it on her face, and wasn’t that an uncomfortable thought, a Mandalorian showing their face so freely. It went against everything Din believed, where your true identity was a closely guarded secret, to be shown only to the most trusted.

Yet, the Armourer seemed unfazed, and Din knew, academically, that the clan that had raised him had been considered traditional in the way they followed the Creed, which meant, naturally, that there had to be a non-traditionist way. Of course, to be confronted with the possibility of what that might mean was something else entirely and he couldn’t help the almost instinctive rebellion against the evidence.

The Armourer had expected this, she must have done. If her words to him prior to their arrival had been any indication she must have known this was a possibility.

Capable of looking past prejudice she had said.

Not that she was doing anything to intervene. Perhaps she thought it best that they worked this out between them, or maybe she was simply waiting for the right moment. For now, Din decided to follow her lead and let this, whatever it was, play out and hoped it didn’t end in bloodshed.

He could sort out his own misgivings later. He’d had his worldview on his understanding of the Creed shifted once before when he had realised his son, and then later, himself, were some of the very things he had been taught to defend his clan against, and survived; he could do it again if he had to.

“Fanatics!”

“Disrespectful!”

“I bet you were Death Watch. You were, weren’t you?”

“How dare you abandon the Creed.”

“The Creed? What do you know of the Creed? You were terrorists!”

“You must be Kryze then. Pacifists.”

“Oh you would say that, Vizsla, right?”

Din had very little idea what they were arguing about, beyond that he’d last heard a lot of the names and terms being thrown around when learning about the Mandalorians in the Clone Wars, a series of events that would lead to the downfall of Mandalore. He’d been too young to remember any of it. He’d never actually seen Mandalore. By the time he’d become a foundling, the purge was only a few months away.

Helmet removal aside, it seemed ridiculous to so quickly fall back into the arguments of the dead. Mandalore was gone – what did clan politics matter now? Especially considering there were still Mandalorians who needed their help on the ships and this petty fighting was only getting in the way.

Still the Armourer wasn’t doing anything.

He feared if she waited any longer, it would come to blows.

As the groups bickered, and more weapons began to be drawn Din felt something building in the Force. It felt heavy, dense, and strange and he didn’t like it one bit. It felt like the prelude to conflict.

It was, quite frankly, giving him a headache, he had had enough.

“Enough!” he snapped.

In near unison the two groups fell silent and heads, helmeted and un-helmeted alike, turned to face him. It took the echo of his own voice ringing in the clearing for him to realise that he hadn’t so much snapped as shouted. Even the Armourer seemed startled by his sudden command.

“ _Me'ven_?”

“Kryze, Vizsla, old allegiances, it doesn’t matter,” he said. “What point is there in resurrecting the disagreements of our ancestors?” Stunned expressions greeted him, but no one was outright disputing him so he kept going. “We weren’t there, we didn’t do any of that. We were children, all of us. We were taught different things, so what? That was a long time ago and a lot has happened since then. We’re here, we’re alive, focus on that. Mandalore is lost. What’s important is here and now.”

As he reached the end of his little speech he felt oddly drained, as though the weight of the resolution was on his shoulders.

“Our _vod_ is right,” said one of the newcomers, also helmetless. It was a concession that sparked others to back down and just as quickly as it had begun, the tension was broken.

Only Paz, the other clan’s leader, and the woman Paz had insulted still seemed ready for a fight, and now the leader’s attention was fixed on him.

“What clan do you represent, stranger?”

It wasn’t quite a sneer, even if it should have been because Din had technically been Death Watch too, once. Not anymore. He wouldn’t rise to the bait.

“My own,” he said instead, because it was true.

That caught them off guard.

“The _beroya_ is right!” The Armourers voice rang loud enough as she finally stepped in, silencing any other brewing arguments. “Need I remind you all what we have all lost? We are Mandalorians and we are together. Everything else is secondary.”

Around the clearing, Din could see sheepish Mandalorians behaving like children scolded by a teacher. It would have been funny if it weren’t still so volatile.

“You have wounded?” The Armourer asked, turning the conversation back to where it should have been all along. “We have medics and supplies.” She stepped aside to reveal Aikan, busy organising bandages, and Tycho, who had been watching everything with wide eyes. “And you have information on your attackers which could help us protect our covert from what is clearly a threat. It would benefit us all to cooperate.”

Finally, the leader calmed, slumped a little. It was clear that the journey and this confrontation had worn on him and it seemed they had finally got through to him.

“Very well, _ner vod_,” he said, offering out a hand. “I’m Samirr Kyrze.”

“Thora,” the Armourer replied and reached out to clasp his forearm as he did the same in return. They shook. Then, with a wry humour, she added absently. “Originally of Clan Wren.”

The Armourer let that particular revelation ripple through the gathered Mandalorians as they released each other. Samirr chuckled, low and ironic, but clearly amused.

“Point made.”

The woman and Paz were still glaring at each other, but even as Din watched they seemed to come to a, if not agreement, at least a truce.

Still, it wasn’t until the wounded were being escorted inside and the two groups were mingling without open hostility that he breathed properly again, deep and easy.

Samirr and the Armourer agreed to wait until the injured had been cared for before holding a meeting to discuss the circumstances of their attack and ensuing distress call, so Din found himself with time on his hands.

The two clans were generally keeping apart within the hideout, except for the children, who were delighted to have new playmates. Which was how he found himself stood next to Paz, watching over the foundlings, as a few members of the other clan did the same from across the room.

Alema was with them, but she seemed fine, settled. He couldn’t sense any distress in the force so, for the time being, he was content to let her play. Besides, there was nothing he could do if Alema did lose control beyond get her out of the sight of others, he’d have to wait until Marin got back to him to see if she had any advice.

As expected, Cara had teased him about messaging ‘his girlfriend’ though, to her credit, she had at least waited to do so until they were alone.

“Din,” Paz suddenly spoke up beside him. “There’s, that is, there’s something I’ve been meaning to talk to you about.”

Din frowned, not sure what part of that little pronouncement disturbed him more, the fact that Paz had used his first name, or the idea that Paz of all people wanted to talk.

“What about?”

Paz, uncharacteristically, fidgeted. “I’m, that is, I -“

“Spit it out, Paz,” he said, concerned now.

“I’m sorry!” Paz blurted out. “About the, you know,” he indicated vaguely towards his own helmet, “when we fought.”

“It’s fine.”

Din had almost forgotten about their fight if he was honest, it felt so long ago now.

“No, it’s not, I didn’t mean to,”

“Paz,” he interrupted, now thoroughly confused. “What are you talking about?”

“You said you had word trouble because of a hit to the head,” Paz mumbled.

“What,” Din began, and then stopped as it clicked. “Oh, Paz, no, that wasn’t you. I’d been having trouble long before our fight. That was from the fight on Nevarro, with Gideon.”

There was a moment as Paz took that in.

“Oh,” he said.

“Yeah.”

“Well.”

For a moment they stood and watched the children play.

“I appreciate the apology though,” he offered when it became clear that Paz wasn’t going to say anything else.

“Yeah,” Paz replied with a shrug. “No hard feelings, then?”

Din felt the beginnings of a smile. “No hard feelings.”

The ball that the children were playing with came rolling over towards them and Paz caught it with his foot before it could hit the wall. Alema came running after it, calling out something about a free kick and Paz carefully nudged it to her, crouching down a little to provide some sport-related advice.

Din sought out Riye and found him with the younger children watching the game. He had taken a moment, before the new clan had come into the hideout, to remind Riye about the importance of keeping his powers hidden and, once he was sure the message was received, had snuck him some of his favourite snack and sent him off to play and hoped.

Sensing his attention, Riye chirped happily and he waved back in acknowledgement. Across the room, the two members of the new clan, one sans helmet, were watching the interaction and, although he couldn’t be sure, he was fairly certain he saw the man’s face soften.

“You didn’t seem bothered,” Paz said absently, rejoining him. “When they took their helmets off.”

Din frowned at his clanmate. He had been expecting confrontation about his reaction, or lack thereof, and his sudden and impassioned speech, but not in the form of this idle questioning. Maybe Paz had been more affected by his perceived guilt than he thought.

“I have learned that just because we were taught these things as children,” he said, eyes on Riye as he played with the other foundlings, a living testament to his conviction, “doesn’t necessarily mean they were right.”

Paz followed his gaze to his son and sighed, long and heavy.

“Yeah, maybe,” he said.

Din could work with that.

When they gathered around the table behind the forge later that afternoon with Samirr and a few other members of the new clan who also had scorch marks on their armour, Din wondered if he was about to find out what exactly they thought of _jetii_ powers.

He had sent Riye to bed, with Cara acting as babysitter just in case anything happened. Alema had worn herself out playing and had gone with them without complaint. For now, they were safe. It was time to find out if they’d stay that way.

“You said you were attacked,” the Armourer prompted, spreading out a star map on the table.

“Yes,” Samirr replied, reaching out to tap on the map. “We were here, on our way from Bespin to Endor, to deliver some of the gas from the mines in exchange for ingots of beskar they had reclaimed from the Empire after the Battle of Endor.”

“You were close to Endor,” the Armourer noted. “Was the attack not noticed? The hyperlanes are busy around the planet.”

“Our ships are unregistered,” Makana, the woman Paz had held such issue with, volunteered. “For obvious reasons. We wouldn’t have been picked up by their scanners.”

“And your distress signal was sent in Mando’a,” the Armourer finished.

“Exactly,” Makana said. “We are glad you picked that up, by the way, in case it hasn’t been said.”

It hadn’t, although the implication had been there. The Armourer nodded to acknowledge the thanks but quickly turned back to business.

“It was only one ship,” Samirr continued, “but it was a big one. At first, we outmatched them and we would have continued doing so, if not for the _darjetii_.”

Din felt a shiver run down his spine at the confirmation.

“Jedi, are you sure?” the Armourer asked, picking her words carefully, for his benefit, he suspected. She was testing the waters, seeing how they responded to the name.

“This thing was no Jedi,” Makana said. “Jedi at least had some morals.”

Din, whilst not exactly reassured by the phrasing, was glad that they were at least differentiating _jetii_ from _darjetii_. Judging by their apparent ambivalence towards the Jedi, his son might be safe amongst them after all.

“They suddenly started getting hits in,” Samirr explained, “as though they were predicting our moves. Then they managed to disable Makana’s ship and boarded it.”

“Imps,” Makana said, distaste clear. “Most of them were Imps, soldiers, and badly trained at that, easy enough to deal with. We had thought it might be Gideon, we know he has a grudge against Mandalorians, but then they starting shouting that they were _avenging_ Gideon, so clearly the stories of his death are true.”

Din felt the hairs on his neck prickle as, unseen behind the visors, Paz and the Armourer’s eyes turned to him in unison. Neither of them said anything to confirm or deny the rumours.

“We had arrived and boarded as well,” Samirr continued, “to provide backup. Then this man, he was a kid really, appeared behind the Imps. We didn’t consider him a threat, but then he pulled out a weapon of red light – the kind only _darjetii_ use.”

Makana shuddered. “He had nasty eyes, yellow.”

Din remembered what Marin had told him about the dark side, about what happened to people who fell, what the dark did to you, and he had to restrain a shudder of his own. He could only imagine what it must have felt like to stand in the presence of a true _darjetii_ , it can’t have been pleasant.

“He didn’t know that beskar could stop his weapon,” Samirr dropped his head down, his shoulders slumping in defeat. “That’s the only reason we’re alive, any of us. He didn’t discriminate between warrior or child. The beskar gave us enough of an edge. It was only through sheer numbers we were able to make him retreat.”

“He kept saying something,” Makana said, running a finger along the edge of the table. “Kept asking ‘where is she’.” She looked up at them. “I don’t suppose that means anything to you?”

Paz shook his head but Din’s mind was racing with a sudden and terrifying possibility. The Dugs on Malastare had seen him, would have recognised him as a Mandalorian. He had left enough of them alive that they could have reported back to their client that a Mandalorian had escaped with their quarry – a small force-sensitive Twi’lek girl called Alema.

This attack might not have been accidental at all, it might have been targeted, a raid on a Mandalorian ship, looking for her.

What had he started?

“Our _beroya_ has contacts across this sector of space,” the Armourer’s voice drew him briefly out of his panic and back into the meeting. She addressed him directly. “See what you can find, Din. We want to be prepared in case this happens again.”

The message was pointed and clear. The Armourer knew enough about what he had been learning to know the best course of action, considering what they had just heard. She was ordering him to get in touch with Marin.

Samirr nodded. “That seems a good place to start, let us know what you find.”

Eight steps, turn, boots scarping in the gravel of the cavern floor, eight steps back, turn.

Din was waiting for Marin. He had sent her a message on their secure channel following the meeting, asking for any intel on any known _darjetii_ in the sector or any information that might help them defend against one, if it came to that. It was taking longer than he would like for her to respond and Cara was watching him pace with increasing concern.

“She’ll get back to you.”

“I know,” he said, sharper than he meant and instantly felt bad for lashing out. “Sorry.”

“She won’t let you down.”

He reached the side of the room and turned again.

“I know I tease you,” Cara said after another completed circuit, “but I think it’s actually quite sweet. You’re good for each other.”

Din paused at that, surprised.

“Really?”

“Yeah,” Cara swung her legs off the edge of the table she was perched on and Riye cooed happily from her lap. She grinned. “I’ve never met anyone else capable of smashing you into the ground so fast.”

“I should have known you liked her because of that.”

His back twinged with a phantom ache from the many practice bouts with Marin which had ended with him flat on his back on the floor.

“I know how to appreciate a good brawler,” Cara said with a shrug, still grinning. Riye was grinning too now, picking up on the humour and Din felt himself relaxing a little with it.

Then the comm beeped and everything crashed back in. He scrambled to grab it and acknowledge the call.

The small hologram of Marin that appeared was immensely reassuring.

“Marin,” he said.

“Din,” she replied. “Hello Cara.”

“Hi,” Cara waved from behind him and Riye, not wanting to be left out, waved too.

“Have you found anything?” Din asked, hurried anxious.

The hologram of Marin squinted at him and he felt the vaguest of tugs on the bond at the back of his mind.

“Calm, Din. Breathe in, hold, release.”

It was a familiar instruction, and one he followed almost without thinking. She wasn’t telling him to calm his breathing, she was telling him to let go of his worry, to give it to the force, as she had taught him to do.

He tried, and he had to admit, he did feel more settled as a result.

“Better?” she asked.

“Yes,” he said. “Sorry.”

“No need to apologise, I understand. What you told me about this suspected _darjetii_ was concerning, I must admit.”

Din took a moment to admire the Mando’a pronunciation, she’d got it almost perfect.

“Were you able find anything useful?”

“Not about the location of your _darjetii_ ,” Marin said. “Though I was able to get in touch with another Togruta I know, who has some knowledge of these things.”

“And?”

“I’ve got a possible location of a base, or at least, a possible source of information. On Rattatak, there was a base used by the _darjetii_ during the Empire, now abandoned. There might be something useful there.”

“It’s worth a try,” Din said, noting down the co-ordinates. “Thank you, Marin.”

He was about to end the call when Marin’s voice stopped him.

“Din,” she said, an undertone of something in her voice. Her holographic hand reached out to brush against his helmet. “I’d rather you waited; I could be with you in a few days.”

“I know,” Din said. “I would rather have you with me as well, but I’m not sure we can afford to wait, we could be sitting ducks, and frankly I’m not sure bringing a force user here would be the best idea, considering what happened the last time these Mandalorians met a force user. I don’t want you to get hurt.”

Marin sighed, and reluctantly dropped her hand but she nodded.

“Then I’ll be ready, in case you need me. Cara, make sure he actually calls me, won’t you? Don’t let him get in over his head.”

“No problem, boss.” Cara mock saluted. He heard her quietly add under her breath. “Fairly sure he’s already in over his head where you’re concerned.”

Din blushed, glad Marin hadn’t heard that and couldn’t see the embarrassing face he was pulling.

“Please, Din,” she said and he looked back at her, “promise me you’ll be careful. This is dangerous, really dangerous.”

He knew, but so had been taking on Gideon and nearly everything he’d done during his years on the run with Riye. Still, he could offer her this small comfort before the storm.

“I promise.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Mando'a translations:  
> utreekov - fool/idiot (literally, empty head)  
> me'ven - what? expression of bewilderment


	4. The Temple

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A trip to Rattatak, a goodbye, a discovery.  
> Things are heating up for Din.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks again for all the lovely comments - this chapter was fighting me but it's finally done!

After a year and a half with only each other for company - as he struggled to learn how to look after the small child who had awoken a conscience long buried - constantly on edge for fear that Riye would be found by Gideon and his men taken from him - Din exactly fond of separating from his son for any extended period of time.

Cara hadn’t exactly been wrong about his separation anxiety.

He'd been learning to let Riye spread his wings, so to speak, on Nova. It had been a slow process, beginning with letting Riye sit in lessons on his own whilst he worked or studied nearby. Eventually, he was able to let Riye out of his sight to play with the other children without immediately breaking out in a cold sweat.

The bond had been a massive help throughout. What had started as a strange and unwelcome feeling had become a blessing in disguise, and he had begun to compulsively reach for it whenever he felt the worry building to reassure himself that Riye was fine.

Then, right at the end of their time on Nova, he’d been away for several days on the trading trip to Malastare, but even then, he’d had the comfort that Riye was with Marin - a warrior far more skilled and competent in the force than he was, capable of dealing with any threat.

The main difference, of course, between their time on the run and now was that he now had a choice.

He didn’t have to risk putting Riye in harm’s way anymore. He could leave Riye behind with the covert and not have to worry that bounty hunters would follow, knowing that the covert would look after his foundling as one of their own.

It was a choice he hadn’t had before and frankly, the idea that Riye was safe was still one he was getting used to months after the fact. If it hadn’t been his saber, his act, that had killed Moff Gideon, he was pretty sure he would have found adjusting that much harder.

Then he had found Alema and brought her with him as was his duty as a Mandalorian. In doing so, he might well have put Riye, Alema, the covert, and other Mandalorians in the firing line, regardless of his good intentions.

That thought scared him most of all, that this was his fault, even more than the lightsaber and dark side wielding kid that had attacked the Mandalorian ships, even more than the possible trap they were about to head into.

He woke early after a restless night, his mind whirring with the implications of Marin’s information.

The night before, he had reported straight to the Armourer after ending the call with Marin. He had wanted to leave immediately, keen to right his wrong and believing that as the only force-sensitive Mandalorian they knew of, he was the only one capable of doing so.

He probably would have gone right then and there had Makana not overheard their conversation and insisted on coming and bringing some back up, and considering their first-hand experience with the _darjetii_ , Din could understand where she was coming from.

Besides, they didn’t know what he was capable of yet, nor about the saber clipped to his belt. He could hardly fault them for their caution and desire for safety in numbers, especially as they had only just found each other and discovered that maybe the Mandalorian people weren’t as scattered and broken as they had feared.

The Armourer had agreed, but as Makana and Samirr needed more time to finish repairs to one of their ships, it was decided that they would instead leave in the morning.

Judging by the small warm form tucked in the gap between his shoulder and neck Riye had climbed out of his own bed and joined him sometime in the night. Din knew he should probably try and train him out of it, but in that moment, agitated by fragmented sleep, he couldn’t bring himself to care.

If the data they had retrieved from the Jedi temple was anything go by, his son would long outlive him. So, he chose to treasure moment like these, to give Riye good memories to sustain him. He reached up to Riye and held him close as dawn broke.

When the sounds of the covert waking spread, Riye began to rouse, wriggling against him.

“Good morning, _ad’ika_ ,” he greeted.

“ _Vaar'tur , buir_.”

Hearing his son speak Mando’a made something warm and bright rise in his chest and to his surprise he found himself choking back sudden tears.

His pronunciation was coming on nicely.

“ _Buir_ , sad?”

“No, Riye,” he said softly, helping his son stand up on the bed so he could sit without jostling him. “ _Buir_ isn’t sad. _Buir_ is proud. You’re learning and growing so quickly.”

“I _ori_!”

Din laughed. Riye was many things but physically large wasn’t exactly one of them. Still, he would humour him for now.

“Yes, you’re a big boy now.” He considered his helmet, the cushions on the end of the bed, and his still silent comm. “Shall we meditate together, _ner dral’ika_?”

“’Ed-id-ate!”

Riye had learned to meditate with Marin initially and he knew how much his son liked spending time surrounded by the force. Apparently, according to Yoda, his species were commonly force-sensitive, and usually strong in it at that. The force came naturally to Riye in a way that it hadn’t to him.

He reached for the cushions, settled Riye down on one and sat on the other, relaxing slowly and letting everything but his son’s force presence fade away.

That too, had become easier with time.

The problem with force bonds, it turned out, was that they ran both ways and whilst he revelled in the happiness that his son was radiating, Riye picked up on his unease about the _darjetii_ and his upcoming mission.

“ _Buir_?”

“Yes, _ad’ika_?”

“You sad!”

The statement was punctuated with a pout and crossed arms, something he must have picked up from the other children. It wasn’t a question this time and Din felt his heart pang at his son’s obvious worry and tone of voice and, unthinking, he reached out and pulled Riye into his lap.

“I’m,” he struggled to find a word that Riye would understand. There was no point trying to hide it, Riye would know if he was lying. “I’m a little scared because, you see, I have to go away for a while, Riye, so I won’t be with you.”

“Go ‘way?”

Those big eyes pierced into his, round and tearful.

“You know the new clan?” Riye nodded, he’d quickly made friends amongst the new foundlings. “They were hurt by a bad man. As _beroya_ , it’s my job to look after the clan, so I’m going to go and find out about the bad man so we can stop him.”

“You go protec’?”

“That’s right,” he said, relieved that Riye seemed to understand. “Our _alor_ is going to look after you whilst I’m gone.”

“ _Ba'vodu_ T’ora!”

“Yes, _ba'vodu_ Thora,” he corrected softly, wondering when exactly the Armourer had started using her given name around Riye.

He was suddenly very glad that Riye was used to spending time being babysat by Cara and Marin. It meant that saying someone else was going to look after him for a little while was usually received with excitement rather than tantrums and he suspected that it was good for Riye to get used to being with other people, considering their respective ages.

As least the Armourer knew not to feed him too much sugar, unlike a certain Togruta.

“When you back?” Riye asked.

“I’m not sure,” he admitted, not wanting to give him false expectations. “But not long, I promise. If you need me at any time, you know how to find me, don’t you?”

He reached and give their bond a gentle tug and Riye giggled and tugged back in response as he reached up for a hug.

“Love you, _buir_.”

Din felt his eyes burning again as he tucked Riye firmly against him.

“I love you too, _ner ad_.”

In spite of his preparations, it still tore at something in him to hand Riye over to the Armourer.

“Have you got everything you need?” he asked as he fussed with Riye’s shirt.

“We’ll be fine, Din,” she said. “Olia is quite fond of Riye.”

He nodded and forced himself to step away just as Makana rounded the corner with a small group from the other clan, all well armoured and armed, some helmeted, some not. It was still jarring to see, but he was beginning to, if not accept it, then at least tolerate it.

“ _Beroya_ ,” Makana greeted him. “This is Kessi, Bran, and Quintus.”

She pointed out each member of her party in turn.

“Din,” he said, indicating himself, “and Cara.”

The man Makana had introduced as Quintus was frowning at Cara.

“You’re not Mandalorian,” he accused.

“No,” Cara confirmed, straightening up. “Is that going to be a problem?”

Quintus made to take a step forward but Makana stopped him with an outstretched arm.

“You know how to handle this?” she asked, throwing a rifle over.

Cara caught it with ease, checked it over in sharp, practiced movements, and tested the sight by aiming it just to right of Quintus’s shoulder with a cocky smile.

Makana watched the display with a smirk and Quintus, faced with an obvious display of skill, grudgingly backed down.

“No problem,” he mumbled.

“Good,” Din said, drawing all eyes back to him. “Then let’s not waste any more time.”

“Of course, _beroya_ ,” Makana agreed, the weight placed on the honorific title a clear indication of respect and acknowledgement of his authority in light of the squabbling. “Lead the way.”

The Razor Crest lifted off smoothly and he guided the small convoy of ships up into the atmosphere and then plotted a route to Rattatak which he sent to Makana over the comm for the other ships to follow.

It was only when they were firmly underway, and with only the two of them in the small space, that Cara finally took the opportunity to ask the question that he suspected had been building since the moment the new Mandalorian clan had arrived and taken off their helmets.

“So, what’s with the helmet thing? Why don’t these guys wear them? You all seem pretty committed to it.”

Din looked up, distracting from the anxious tapping of his fingers on the console.

“It’s, it’s hard to explain.”

Cara frowned. “I kind of assumed it was a thing all Mandalorians did.”

“So did I.”

In truth the only reason he hadn’t reacted like Paz was because of the Armourer. Both what she had said to him beforehand and her lack of reaction. She’d kept things from them before to protect them, like his own abilities, but this was big. She must have stuck to the traditional interpretation of the creed with good reason.

“Huh,” Cara said. “You didn’t seem as, well, pissed off about it as the others.”

“I was, at first.”

“But?”

He sighed. “The Armourer said something to me, before we went out, about needing someone able to see beyond prejudice. I think she was expecting something like it.”

“She said something about being in a specific clan, right?”

“Wren,” he confirmed. “Which doesn’t mean anything to me, if you’re wondering.” Cara shut her mouth, swallowing the question. “Clan politics never meant anything to me. I was raised by a group called Death Watch, as part of their fighting corps, but Mandalore was lost to Imperial rule barely two months after they found me and we went into hiding. We didn't have the numbers to retake Mandalore. so I rarely came across other clans, their way was all I knew.”

“So, how did you end up joining the Nevarro covert?”

“There was a civil war on Mandalore, then not long after the Purge. What few Mandalorians that were left were being hunted. My original group became scattered and split by a series of skirmishes with Imperial troops, until only a few of us remained. We were searching for other Mandalorians hoping to find a larger group with a defended base, when we heard rumours of a clan hiding on Nevarro. When we arrived, we found the Armourer and a small group of survivors, and by that point what clan you were from didn’t seem of consequence. We were lucky to find others at all.”

“And the helmet thing?”

“They were already practicing it,” he said, beginning to wonder if he had hit upon the reason why the Armourer had chosen to follow the traditional ways. “I don’t know when they started to, or why the Armourer decided on that version of the Creed. We hid to survive, and part of that was hiding our identity, keeping our helmets on, remaining anonymous to never reveal our true numbers.”

Cara hummed, absorbing that and toying with a braid in her hair.

“I’m sorry you had to go through that,” she said finally. “It must have been lonely.”

He fought against the instinctive rebuttal and found that, on reflection, actually had been a lonely existence, never revealing his face to anyone until Riye.

“It was,” he said, his voice cracking, “but maybe we can learn a different way of following the Creed.”

Cara gently nudged his shoulder, comfort and support intertwined in one familiar movement. “Only if you’re comfortable with it,” she said. “Maybe you all have something that you can learn from each other.”

Din nodded. He was starting to see that there might be a brighter future for the Mandalorian people after all.

“What is it you say?” Cara said. “This is the Way?”

And just like that, the sombre mood was broken and they were back to teasing, but still the hope that the conversation had woken in him overwhelmed his anxiety all the way to Rattatak.

The moment he stepped off the Razor Crest Din knew that something here was horribly, horribly wrong.

The force felt twisted, strained, as though it had been forced into a form that was unnatural by something. It reminded him of the sensation of Marin challenging the dark side, of the wrongness of Gideon holding the darksaber, and it sent a shiver down his spine.

Ahead of the them, the remains of a temple, once a _darjetii_ base, towered over the land. There were any number of unpleasant things that could be waiting for them inside.

Perhaps he should have waited for Marin after all.

“Din?” Cara prompted when he failed to move any further.

“Something feels wrong here,” he said.

Cara looked around. “It’s giving me the creeps.”

Across the clearing, Makana’s ship was touching down and Kessi’s was hovering overhead, searching for a good space to land. Other than that, they seemed to be alone.

“No locals around,” he noted, letting the visor run through the scans.

“Can you blame them?” Cara asked, her eyes on the broken fortress on the hill.

Din reached tentatively for the force and felt the strain and the dark. “No, not really.”

“So,” said Makana and she approached. “That’s the place your source gave us a tip off about?”

“It’s an old _darjetii_ base,” he said. “There might be useful information inside. Or another lead.”

“Or a _darjetii_ ,” Makana suggested, face serious as she lifted up her own helmet to put it on.

“Or that,” he agreed.

“Well then,” Makana said as Kessi and Bran joined them. “After you, _beroya_.”

Din swallowed, gave the force one final prod to check for any immediate danger with a suppressed shudder, and began to walk towards the _darjetii_ base.

As they made their way up the hill, accompanied only by the howl of the wind, Din took point with Makana and the other Mandalorians formed a defensive wall, covering all possible directions of approach with Cara bringing up the rear.

Still, nothing jumped out at them and they arrived at one of the gaps in the wall to the structure with no resistance, which, combined with the scans from his helmet, gave Din confidence that this place really was abandoned.

Even so, he opened up his mind to the force as fully as he could bear and took the first step into the temple with extreme caution, blaster held out at the ready and his free hand hovering by the place where his saber was concealed on his belt.

“ _Utrel'a_ ,” he said after a quick scan around the room and he kept watch as Makana and the rest of the group followed him.

The inside of the building was dark, lit only where the sun was leaking through cracks in the walls and the roof. It seemed relatively stable but the lack of light only added to the spooky, oppressive and dangerous atmosphere around the place and it was clearly putting all of them on edge. The room itself was large and, both thankfully and worryingly, empty. No clear threats and at the same time, no evidence that they might find something useful.

Clicking on his headlamp and hearing the others doing the same behind him, he looked around slowly, checking for other entrances and doorways.

“What are we looking for, exactly?” Makana asked from beside him.

“Data pads, anything that looks like an archive or library,” he said, remembering Marin’s advice. “If you find something, let me know. Don’t touch anything.”

“Why not?” Bran asked.

“Apparently,” he replied, “the _darjetii_ were fond of leaving traps. I’d rather not trigger one, would you?”

Bran swallowed and stepped carefully away from the walls.

As more of the room came into view, it was clear that they were in the central chamber and that a number of hallways led off to the side.

“Ok, split up,” he ordered. “Stay in pairs, be careful, and stay on the comms. First sign of trouble and we’re getting out of here.”

“Quin, with me,” Makana said, heading towards one door as Kessi and Bran edged towards another.

Cara joined him as they faced the final door.

“Anything?” she asked under her breath.

“Nothing,” he said, equally quiet “the force feels different, bad almost, but I’m not getting any sense of warning or danger.”

“Well, that’s a good sign, I guess.”

“Let’s hope it stays that way,” he said and stepped through the doorway.

Together they cleared the small complex of rooms they had ended up in, but it quickly became obvious that nothing useful had been left behind. The wrongness lingered in the air and some of the room layouts and designs made him shudder at the implications of their intended use.

The only thing they found of interest was a small artifact under a broken piece of furniture in the corner of room that was like a beacon in the force but as soon as he could see that it wasn’t a padd or book, he backed away.

He wasn’t going to risk touching it and potentially putting them all in danger.

“What is that thing?” Cara asked.

“No idea,” he said as he saved the feed from his helmet for Marin. “I’ll ask Marin and we can come back if we need to.”

“Good idea,” Cara said.

“ _Beroya_!” The comms cracked in his ear. “We’ve found something!”

Exchanging looks, they hurried back to the main room to find Makana and Quintus already heading for the area that Kessi and Bran were searching.

The something turned out to be a cracked data padd which had clearly been abandoned but, if they were lucky, might still function. Kessi and Bran were keeping their distance, as advised.

He crouched down and reached out for the force. When nothing jumped out at him, he slowly reached towards it.

“ _Beroya_ , you said not to touch anything,” Kessi exclaimed.

He paused and looked up. “I said that you shouldn’t touch anything,” he replied. “Your safety is my responsibility here. This risk is mine.”

No one complained when he reached out again, though they tensed ready for, well, anything.

His fingers closed around the corner, picking it up gingerly. All eyes were on him as he searched for a way to turn it on and, finally, with a little wriggling and button pressing, it flickered to life.

Kessi jumped slightly and the others fidgeted, but no traps or alarms went off and slowly they relaxed.

Din, flicking rapidly through the files and information stored on the data padd, was not relaxing at all. Cara approached carefully and began to read over his shoulder.

“What’s an inquisitor?” she finally asked.

“I don’t know,” he replied, eyes scanning, looking for anything useful, anything relevant. He opened a new file and froze, putting the whole room back on edge. “But I think I’ve found our _darjetii_.”

Slowly, he turned the screen so Cara could see. She hissed.

“An apprentice?”

“The age and description are about right. This inquisitor is training them I think, they must have lived here once.”

“Din,” Cara said sharply, pointing at something further down on the padd, “look.”

He read it, and then read it again.

“Fuck,” he said.

The recorded communication was recent and in it, the inquisitor, whoever and whatever they were, was instructing their apprentice to find as many force-sensitive children as they could, to build up their ranks and train them in the ways of the _darjetii_ , as was their duty to the Emperor and the dark.

“What is it?” Makana asked, leaning over.

“They’re hunting children,” he explained carefully and the Mandalorians bristled. There fight with this _darjetii_ was already personal, but now it was even more so.

“Alema,” Cara said.

“Must be,” he replied.

“The foundling?” Bran asked suddenly, “what’s she got to do with it?”

Makana got there before he could. “He’s hunting her, isn’t he?”

Before he could confirm his suspicions, the force suddenly spiked and flared up in warning. Fumbling, he tucked the data padd away and grabbed for his blaster as he reached out and threw himself as open to the force as he could tolerate.

All he got was a sense of darkness and danger, getting stronger by the second, as though it were approaching.

They were out of time.

“We need to go,” he said sharply. “Now.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Mando'a translations:  
> vaar'tur - morning  
> ori - big  
> ner - my  
> dral’ika - little bright one  
> ad - son  
> utrel'a - all clear


	5. The Hunt

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Time is running out. The dark is coming.  
> Din makes a choice.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The time for fluff is over - mwahaha  
> (this chapter is a monster, I'm sorry!)

Thankfully, the team of Mandalorians followed his order without question, responding to his sharp tone of voice and the general atmosphere of the _darjetii_ base in equal part. They left the ruined temple much in the same way they arrived, with speed and utmost caution. Makana led the group outside onto the hillside bathed in light from the setting sun, whilst Din took up the rear, just in case anything came at them from within the building. If only he could focus –

It felt like the Force was pulling him in two directions at once and he was torn between the twin calls. It was confusing and frightening and he still couldn’t pinpoint what the warning and ominous feeling meant beyond the obvious darkness that was a remnant of what occurred here.

As he stepped outside of the building and into the sunlight, the feeling didn’t fade. If anything, it grew stronger.

“We’ve got incoming!” Makana called.

Din turned, heart racing, and spotted the small group approaching the bottom of the hill, weapons already drawn. There were, perhaps, a dozen of them. Usually he’d be confident that they could take them, but if they were Force-sensitive they might be in trouble.

“Anything?” Cara asked again, clearly thinking the same thing.

He stretched out into the Force as best he could. He’d sometimes struggled with this aspect of the Force, especially at distance, just as Marin struggled with healing. It didn’t help that it felt like he was wading through mud trying to get the fractured and twisted Force to follow his will whilst, all the while, there was something else, something distant attempting to catch his attention.

With the ambient darkness around the temple, he couldn’t be certain if his sense was right, but finally he managed to get a semblance of an impression on the approaching party.

“I don’t think they’re like me,” he said quietly to Cara.

She nodded, taking up a position in a gap in the group as though she had always fought with them.

The closer the got, the surer he got that they weren’t dealing with a _darjetii_. Besides, he assumed if a _darjetii_ was among them, they’d be wielding a red lightsaber like the boy that had attacked the Mandalorian ships, and he couldn’t see a saber.

“No lightsaber,” he observed, moving to take a position beside Makana at the front of the group with his blaster raised and ready. “We might have got lucky.”

Makana hummed as she aimed at the closest figure.

“They’re nearly in range,” Bran reported behind them.

“I guess we’re about to find out,” Makana said and a few seconds later she opened fire.

The leader of the approaching group dropped and didn’t make any move to get up again. There was a moment of silence, a calm before the storm.

A moment later, a proper, chaotic, firefight kicked off. In between the sounds of blaster fire, shouting, screams, and the occasional impact of blaster fire on beskar, Din was glad they had the tactical advantage. He still felt distracted, as though he was missing something important and he needed to get his head in the game. These people, whoever they were, knew what they were doing.

“Kriff,” Quintus cursed as a lucky shot found a gap between beskar plates.

“Are you alright, _vod_?” he asked, forcing himself not the look, not to become distracted again.

“I’m fine,” Quintus said, snarling as his next shot took down the man responsible for his injury. “Stings like a bitch, though.”

Behind him, Bran made a strange choking sound that could have been a stifled laugh.

Faced with five trained Mandalorians and an ex-shock trooper and clearly not expecting them, the attacking force didn’t really stand a chance. If there had been a Force-user amongst them, Din thought, it might have been a different story, but as he finally got a clear shot on the final, persistent one, the threatening feeling didn’t abate.

It pressed against him, slowly weighing him down.

“Kessi,” Makana ordered.

“On it.”

Kessi was small and fast, a scout if Din had ever seen one. Breaking from the defensive line she skidded down the hill, staying as flat as she could and ducking behind cover whenever it was available until she reached the fallen bodies.

“They’re down,” she reported over the comm.

With Kessi covering them, they made their way down the hill, Cara bringing up the rear with her back to them, facing the temple.

“Who are they?” Bran asked.

Makana kicked one of the fallen bodies over and Din kept his blaster trained on the body her whilst she dug through pockets looking for any form of identification. Finally, she found a piece of metal with a symbol engraved on it that she clearly recognised.

“Scavengers,” she said. “Probably hoping for _darjetii_ riches.”

“Well, they would have been disappointed anyway then,” Quintus said. “We saved them the trouble.”

Makana shot him a look but said nothing. Once she had completed her search of the body, she turned back to him as he was technically the commander of this small mission.

“Thoughts, _beroya_?”

Din considered the temple, the sinking feeling of darkness and despair in the air.

“Strip them of valuables and leave them here,” he said finally. “Maybe they’ll act as a warning to others to stay well clear.”

The others stared for a moment, uncertain.

“You heard him,” Makana said and he could tell she was frowning.

“ _Elek , al’verde_,” Bran said with a nod towards him and began to search the dead scavengers closest to him.

After a moment the others followed suit.

“We need to get this information back to the covert,” he said, touching the datapadd in his pocket.

“Agreed,” Makana said. “As soon as we’re finished here, we’ll head for the ships.”

Around them, the other Mandalorians squabbled over weapons and ammunition and Din, his muscles burning and his head aching, suddenly very much felt his age. He was getting too old for this sort of life, Force or no.

The Razor Crest shone in the fading light like a beacon, and the sight of its familiar paintwork was enough to pull Din away from the strange feeling of disconnect with the Force. Soon he would be off this planet and away from the darkness and back with his son.

They were only a few metres away from the ship when it happened.

Something came crashing into his mind, tearing him away from any sense of reality. It breezed through his shields as though they weren’t even there and for a moment, he dreaded the worst, but it didn’t hurt, not really. It felt, not bad, just overwhelming.

The sensation reminded him vaguely of the caves on Nova, of the strange things he had seen there but even as he thought it, the vision, because that’s what it had to be, barrelled over him and everything else faded away.

He saw a beam of light, red and glowing. He felt anger, and fear, and terror.

He saw the covert laid to waste in the caves of Bakura, the bodies of his friends, his family bloodied and broken.

Riye, being pulled away, kicking and screaming, by a boy in a dark cloak with an arrogant sneer.

Being pulled away from the Armourer, from her dead body, he realised with a cold shiver.

He saw Riye being given to a figure, fuzzy and unclear. Heard the boy address the woman as ‘master’.

Heard a cold, empty voice.

“You have done well, my apprentice.”

He came back to himself gasping and on all fours, choking on air. His mind felt floaty, distant and the only thing he could focus on was the feeling of the hard ground under his knees and palms and the struggle not to throw up.

“Din? Din!”

Cara. The world came back into focus abruptly and it felt oddly as though he had been thrown back into his body.

“Cara,” he croaked, just to make sure he could still speak.

“Oh, thank fuck,” Cara said and he felt her hands on him, on his shoulders, holding him steady. “Are you ok? What happened? Can you stand?”

Slowly, he pushed himself up on shaking limbs until he was kneeling. Cara’s hands were hovering on the edges of his vision, ready to catch him if needed and he remembered the last time Cara had been there to catch him, on Nevarro, at the start of all this.

He said nothing. His first instinct was to reach, urgently and desperately, for his bond with Riye, and he found him – fine. Alive, happy, a little confused and concerned for him, but fine.

“ _Beroya_?”

It was Makana’s voice that pulled him back this time. She was crouched near him, not close enough to touch. At some point, she had removed her helmet.

“What was that?”

She didn’t sound accusatory, exactly, but her words were sharp. Instead of answering, he began to push himself to his feet and did his best to ignore the way Bran and Kessi flinched away slightly.

He wondered what it had looked like to them, for them to react like that.

“We have to get to the covert, fast,” he said, still slightly out of it with parts of the vision flashing through his mind like afterimages.

He couldn’t, wouldn’t, let that happened.

“No offense, _beroya_ ,” Makana said as she too rose until she was stood opposite him, “but I think you owe us an explanation before we go anywhere.”

Din swallowed. He still didn’t know, for sure, how they would react to the idea of the _jetii_ , or of him being having the abilities of the _jetii_. His mind raced as he tried to come up with a response that would be acceptable to the other clan without spilling his secret.

As the seconds ticked by, he fell back on the only thing he did know for sure. Mandalorians would never harm a child.

“Riye, my son,” he said and he felt Cara jump in surprise behind him. “He, he’s like the _jetii_.”

Makana’s scowl softened ever so slightly.

“Ok,” she said, drawing the word out slowly. “That still doesn’t explain what just happened.”

“He, um, we have this mental link, thing,” he stumbled over the words, not used to explaining this to people who didn’t know what he meant. It had been a long time since he had needed to. “Sometimes he can talk to me, in my head.” Bran was looking alarmed at the idea, Makana didn’t react. “It’s normal, for him, good even. I’m used to it, only this time,” he paused again, trying to find the words, “he saw something, a vision, of the covert under attack, and he shared it with me. It was bit, overwhelming.”

“No kidding,” Cara muttered and Quintus huffed in agreement.

“We thought you’d been attacked,” Kessi confessed quietly.

“I think it might have been a warning,” he said, knowing that he had to convince them to return to the covert. The last time he’d seen visions, they had come true, which meant the covert may well be in imminent danger.

“Or a trap,” Makana said as she observed him.

“No,” he said, “I can still feel him, up here,” he tapped his helmet lightly. “He’s fine, calm.”

Makana hummed again, shifting slightly on her feet.

“Alright,” she said, and although she clearly didn’t completely believe him, she indicated for her clan to head to the ships.

It was enough for now.

It wasn’t until they were on the Razor Crest, half way back to Bakura, and the dark and heavy feeling had seeped from the Force that Din let some of the tension fall from his muscles, rested his head against a wall, a took a moment to steady himself and breathe.

Din was fairly sure he’d never seen a better sight in his life than the covert, intact and untouched, as they touched down on Bakura. He was still jumpy, and he was pretty sure he wouldn’t be able to settle until Riye was back in his arms. Once he was sure Riye was safe, he decided, he was going to contact Marin. He was beginning to realised that he out of his depth.

As they approached the forge, Mandalorians from both clans looked up and stared, eager for news.

“Din Djarin,” the Armourer greeted him from across the room, Riye wriggling in her arms and reaching for him. He took him from her and felt some more of the tension slip away at the familiar and soothing presence filling his senses. “What news?”

“The _darjetii_ that attacked the ships is hunting children,” he said simply and around him the entire room came to a stop. If they had disliked the _darjetii_ before, their dislike had just ramped up a notch. It was clear that the mere idea was abhorrent to everyone here and it gave him hope that they might eventually be able to come together and put their difference aside.

He pulled out the datapadd with the intent of showing the Armourer the conversation they had discovered. Riye held his arm tightly and his presence floated at the back of his mind, not pushing, just there, reassuring him.

To think he could have lost all this, if he hadn’t turned back on Naverro.

Instead of taking the padd, the Armourer gestured him over to the table where Samirr was waiting. Makana followed and after a moment Paz joined them with, to Din’s surprise, a timid looking Alema clinging onto his hand.

With their strange council assembled, he began his report. Din transferred the data to the holotable so they could all read what he had discovered.

“Inquisitor?” Paz asked after a moment, to be met with shrugs and confused looks.

Samirr was still reading, his brows drawn tight together. “It doesn’t explain why the _darjetii_ attacked us.”

There was a gasp and Makana’s eyes widened. Din knew immediately what connection she had made but before she could speak up and break Riye’s secret to the others, before he could muster a way to stop her, a small voice spoke up.

“He was after me, wasn’t he?”

Four heads swivelled to look at the small girl at Paz’s side and Din closed his eyes at the revelation.

Caught in their attention, Alema shrank back a little against Paz’s steady bulk, but she didn’t look like she was going to back down.

“Alema,” he started but she interrupted him.

“It’s because of what I can do, isn’t it?”

Din felt himself slump against the table and knew that there was no going back now.

“Yes,” he said simply and the confirmation rang around the table.

Whispers started up around the room as the gathered Mandalorians worked out what exactly that statement meant. It was a moment of truth. The covert had accepted Riye, which gave him hope that they would accept Alema, but the other clan remained a mystery. If they had a problem with it, Din wasn’t sure what would happen.

“He won’t get you,” the Armourer said firmly, breaking the stalemate. “You are a foundling. We will protect you.”

Foundling? What exactly had he missed in the day away on Rattatak?

Whilst the other clan didn’t exactly look happy, they weren’t protesting. With that in mind, he turned to the Armourer, about to suggest that they contact Marin, when the holotable beeped a warning.

A proximity alert.

A moment later, a voice carried over to them from the sentries stationed near the entrance.

“ _Alor_! There’s an unidentified ship approaching!”

And just like that the proverbial clock stopped ticking and their time was up. It was too late now. He had to face whatever was coming alone.

In the instant after the alarm was raised, the Mandalorians snapped into battle mode and began forming plans to defend the covert.

Paz had called Tycho over to instruct him to take the children into the deepest and theoretically safest parts of the caves, the ones with an emergency exit tunnel that the covert had built, learning from their experiences on Naverro.

Din reluctantly gave Riye to Cara, doing his best to project calm and love even when his own mind was in turmoil. If he was right, he couldn’t afford to sit this one out and he trusted her to protect him almost as much as he trusted himself. He trusted her to get out of here rather than stay and fight if it came to it. In the event of a worst-case scenario she would ensure Riye got to Marin.

He also hoped that by giving Riye to Cara, he would subvert the vision, and set an alternate chain of events in motion. Maybe even his being there would be enough to turn the tides.

He had to hope, had to stay strong, now more than ever.

The Armourer pulled up a map of their surroundings on the table, as Makana ordered Kessi and another scout out towards the nearest viable landing sight to provide them with as much intel as they could, before falling back to the covert to join the main fighting force.

The rest of the battle trained Mandalorians gathered around as, between them, Paz and Din worked out the best positions to defend the covert. The mantle of command fell upon them almost naturally, as the two most experienced fighters in the covert.

“We should set up our snipers here,” Paz said, pointing out a high and hidden position and Din nodded in agreement. He looked over the landscape to see if they had missed anything and indicated a small ridgeline that could work to their advantage.

“A small secondary group could be concealed behind this ri – rid – kriff,” he swore, frustrated. Why did this always seem to happen at the worst possible moment?

“Problem word?” Paz asked.

He had barely nodded before he was suddenly bombarded with suggestions from the members of the covert, or at least, from those who had been on board the ship when he had first hit a problem word in front of Paz. The other clan were watching with clear bemusement, eyes flashing from person to person as they shouted over each other.

“Ledge!”

“Bank?”

“Hill, no, hogback even.”

“Oh, what about arete?”

“Show off.”

“Bank will work fine, thank you,” Din said over the overlapping voices and the snap in his voice was enough to make them fall quiet.

“Sorry,” one of the younger covert members murmured into the awkward silence.

“You were saying?” Paz prompted.

“Right,” Din turned his attention back to the map, aware that time was running out. “We could have a small group behind this bank, to flank the attackers as we draw them in and catch them in the crossfire.”

Paz nodded and took over to explain the positions for the Mandalorians that would be staying in the caves as a last line of defence. With the final decisions made, the fighters began to gathered their gear.

Then comm crackled as the scouts reported in, finally confirmed the numbers they would be facing.

“We’ve got Imps,” Kessi said. “Not many though. A few dozen at best.”

Around the room, people began to relax a little and for a small, tentative moment, Din let himself hope that twenty Imps was all they had to deal with, that they were worrying and planning for nothing.

Then the line burst to life again.

“ _Osik_.” It was the other scout. “It’s the boy. The one from the ship, with the lightsaber.”

As the Mandalorians absorbed that information and the atmosphere sobered, Din met the Armourer’s gaze from across the table. His saber pressed heavily against his back.

Paz was the quickest to recover and he stepped up, as any good commander would. With a firm voice Paz gave the order to take up positions and it was the push most of the Mandalorians needed to push aside their fear and focus on the task at hand.

“Remember,” Paz finished, “beskar will hold up against a lightsaber for a short time. In that, we have the advantage.”

It was a weak advantage as best, but it seemed to cheer up some of the gloomier Mandalorians so Din said nothing. Before he could make to join the group heading outside, the Armourer caught him arm.

“Should I get the darksaber?” she asked, hushed. It was clear that she understood the seriousness of the situation.

Din hesitated. He had no doubt the Armourer was capable of wielding the darksaber and wielding it well, though that wasn’t really the problem.

“If he’s trained,” he said, “I don’t think it’ll make much difference.”

The Armourer nodded and, to his shock, used her grip on his arm to pull him into a brief battle embrace. The words whispered in his ear shocked him even more.

“Then may the Force be with you, Din Djarin.”

At first, the battle went well. As planned the defensive groups were able to take down the Imperial soldiers with relative ease. It was clear the troops were a ragtag group at best, likely united only by their greed, fear, and misplaced loyalty. Unlike the scavengers on Rattatak, most of them couldn’t aim especially well, used to winning battles through sheer numbers. Only this time, sheer numbers wasn’t going to work because the assembled Mandalorian forces actually outnumbered them.

The problem, Din knew, would be the boy.

For the most part, the boy seemed content to stay back and watch on as his men were slaughtered and it put Din on edge, even as he shot down another Imp.

It wasn’t until only a few of the soldiers remained that the boy seemed to take an interest in the battle, beginning to advance onto the field.

Then he pulled out his lightsaber and the humming sound jarred his ears with the sheer wrongness of it, as though the crystals inside were screaming.

Across the field, the Mandalorians hesitated in the face of their new enemy.

“If you bring me the girl,” the boy called as he thoughtlessly deflected a stray blaster bolt away, “You will not be harmed.”

For a moment, there was silence and Din feared some of the Mandalorians might actually fall for it. Then, somewhere beside him, a lone voice called out.

“Get lost, _hut’uun_.”

The boy smirked, pleased, as though they had walked right into his trap. “So be it.”

The red blade twirled as the boy turned his attention to the nearest Mandalorians, ready to make good on his threat.

There was no going back.

Din reached back and unclipped his saber from his belt, just as he reached for the Force. As it always did in battle, it wrapped easily around him and he let himself sink into it, let his senses expand and his focus settle to the _darjetii_ in front of him.

The boy paused, the hand reaching out to hurt his _vod_ with the Force faltering, his head titling.

Din stood, ignoring the muffled curses and the hands that reached to pull him back and stepped forward, his saber held loosely in his grip, still concealed from the boy’s sight.

The boy turned to face him.

“Changed your mind?” he taunted and Din felt a dark and ragged Force presence reaching for him. Instinctually he slammed his shields into place and the boy faltered slightly, bringing his lightsaber to bear on him. “What are you?”

“We said,” Din replied, feeling the Force sing around him, letting it guide him. He had trained for this. If he could lift a slab of concrete, he could do this. There was no other option. Riye needed him, the Armourer was relying on him, Marin believed in him. “Get lost, _hut’uun_.” He spat the final word, making it clear that it was an insult.

The boy lunged and Din moved, faster than should have been possible.

His saber ignited in his hand with a reassuring hum as he blocked the blow intended to kill him, startling the boy into a momentary retreat, as the world narrowed down until he knew nothing except the Force and gold light sparking against deep red.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Mando'a translations:  
> elek - yes  
> osik - shit


	6. The Truth

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A duel. A revelation.  
> Din must face the consequences of his dumb but necessary ideas.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Another monster of a chapter for you all - I swear these keep getting longer. Hopefully I'll be getting this finished in time for the series two premier!

Din Djarin had been seven years old when the war finally arrived on his doorstep.

The arrival of the war had been inevitable. Even the tiny backwater planets like his were no longer safe and what had once been an insignificant outpost had been deemed of strategic importance to the war effort of the surrounding systems. An invasion was expected.

It still caught them by surprise.

First came the droids. Din hadn’t liked droids even before they had started shooting, destroying, and killing everything he loved. The wartime encounter did nothing to improve his opinion of them. Droids were faceless, emotionless. They had always felt cold and empty to him. IG-11 would be the only exception to that rule.

Then, came the Mandalorians, who had pulled him out of the storage container his parents had attempted to hide him in, to keep his safe. They too, were faceless, but he had known, even then, that they were different to the droids. They felt different, full of emotion, human.

He followed the nudge of a power it would take him thirty more years to comprehend and took the hand the Mandalorian warrior offered to him.

It hadn’t been until he was tucked away on a bunk in a Mandalorian base that he understood that he was the only remaining member of his family.

The Mandalorians had told him that he was part of their family now, part of their clan.

He had been too young when he had lost his parents to have formed many lasting memories of them and with age what memories he did have become tainted by the pain of loss and distance and the ravages of time.

Still, there were a few moments that he had guarded closely and carefully. Images of his grandmother not doing anything in particular, just sat, lit by the light from the window, smiling. Of his father reading at the table.

Of his mother’s voice teaching him, guiding him, trying to tell him that he hadn’t fully understood, but that she alone had known.

“You are special Din.”

“You are stronger than you know.”

“You will never be alone.”

The Force was with him, it embraced him as red light clashed against gold. He was both alone, and not alone.

Din’s arms shook from the exertion of blocking the never-ending, powerful blows. He knew he had a serious problem, that he was hopelessly outmatched, but he couldn’t afford to lose focus. The boy wasn’t just trained, he was trained well and clearly had more experience than Din did in saber work. His only real advantage had been the element of surprise and he had long lost that.

He was only able to hold his own because of the constant nudgings of the Force that were enabling him to just about keep up with his younger opponent.

With every swing of the saber, every shift in the hum of the blade, every pull of the Force, Din felt himself tire further. He wasn’t sure how much longer he’d be able to last and through it all the boy just wouldn’t shut up.

Where Marin instructed during duels, the boy clearly enjoyed taunting.

“You can’t protect them,” the boy spat as their sabers met again for a series of harsh and jarring strikes. “You’re getting sloppy. Is that all you’ve got little Jedi?”

‘Little Jedi’ seemed to be the boy’s favourite jibe for him judging by the amount of times he had used it. Din let the words flow over him. If the boy knew how to properly insult a Mandalorian, he wouldn’t be referencing size. He was nothing next to Paz.

His continual calm and refusal to rise to the bait was slowly but surely adding to the weight of the boy’s rage. Which was, well, both good and bad. Good in that with his growing anger was causing him to make small mistakes which Din could take advantage of, mainly to to give himself momentary respite rather than land any hits of his own. Bad because it only seemed to fuel the boy’s connection to the corrupt and twisted version of the Force that he was calling upon.

The Force screamed a warning and Din barely dodged the blow, stumbling back. He blocked the next few strikes through sheer determination only.

He was the only defence Riye had, that the covert had. He wouldn’t let the fate that befell him son in the vision on Rattatak happen.

He clung to his mother’s words, seeking refuge in their comfort as he repeated to himself as a mantra. He was stronger than he thought.

He wasn’t strong enough.

There was the screeching, ear splitting sound of a saber scraping across beskar as the red blade slashed across his chest plate. He had finally failed to move in time. The edge of the blade caught his arm and for a moment the pain overwhelmed everything, even the Force, and Din was certain that this was it.

The humming grew louder.

At least it would be an honourable death.

Then a blaster bolt shot past him and the boy’s attention was suddenly divided between him and the new threat.

The sound of saber against beskar, the symbol of their people, had apparently been enough to pull at least one of the Mandalorians in the defensive line behind him from their stupor. Moments later, someone else joined in and before he could fully process the sudden change in the battle, the boy was more focused on blocking blaster bolts than he was on killing him.

His arm burned.

Din ruthlessly pushed the pain aside and forced himself back to his feet, renewing his grip on his saber in preparation to rejoin the fight.

With the Mandalorian defenders keeping the boy occupied, Din managed to get in enough blows that the boy was forced to start retreating. Pulling on the Force, reaching further than he ever had before, he even managed to shove the boy backwards with a sharp Force push, just like he had once unintentionally done with Gideon.

The spiking headache that accompanied the push went ignored as he pressed his new advantage.

The boy was cursing now, swearing, his anger quickly turning to frustration. There was the sound of a different kind of blaster now joining the battle, and Din recognised Paz’s unique weapon. Quick firing and heavy and utterly merciless in Paz’s hands. It was all that was needed to turn the tides on the _darjetii_.

The sound of blaster fire diminished slightly as their sabers locked for one final time and some of the Mandalorians were forced to reduce their offensive fire, the risk of hitting one of their own too high.

“I’ll be back,” the boy spat, eyes burning the same gold of his own saber blade. “I’ll be back for you. You’ll make an even greater prize for my master than the girl. If you resist, I’ll kill them all.”

And with that, he was suddenly gone. Flipping backwards and running towards his ship with a speed and grace that could only be Force enhanced. The Mandalorians didn’t stop firing until his ship was beyond the range of their weapons.

Then, all that was left was the humming of his saber, the sound of the wind, and the deathly, shocked silence behind him.

With shaking fingers, Din deactivated his saber. His head hurt something fierce, his arm was burning and he felt exhausted beyond words, but still, he turned, determined to stand strong before the ranks of confused and conflicted Mandalorians that he has just defended. Ready to face their judgement.

He made it two steps before the darkness that had been hovering at the edges of his vision started rapidly closing in.

The last thing he heard was the Armourer, sounding more panicked than he had ever heard her, calling his name.

“Easy,” Aikan’s voice broke through the absolutely blinding headache that greeted him upon waking, not helped at all by the bright lights of the medical bay the covert had set up in the caves, even though they were filtered through the visor of his helmet.

“Wha’, what happen’d?” he asked, voice hoarse as he tried to get the world to come back into focus, fighting to sit up before he could fully think the action through.

A firm hand pushed him back down flat on the bed before he could get very far.

“You were an idiot, that’s what,” Cara said.

Slowly, he turned his head towards the sound of her voice, wincing as even the small movement made the headache spike.

“Why’m’I an idiot?”

The words slurred entirely without his permission.

“You just decided to take him on completely alone? The Sith? Seriously?”

“’M the only one who could,” he said in protest, hating how small he sounded.

“One moment Riye’s fine,” Cara started and she sounded angry which wasn’t good, “the next he’s screaming and I don’t know why and then I get a message that you’ve collapsed after fighting a kriffing Sith. You gave me a fucking heart attack, Din.”

“’M fine.”

“Tell that to Marin,” Cara huffed and finally he convinced his wavering vision to focus on her. She looked, not annoyed he realised, but scared. Riye was in her arms, trying to reach for him, ears perking up further as he gave the bond an extremely tentative prod. Even that hurt, but he pushed through it so that he could reconnect with his son.

Riye’s presence was bright too, but in a good way. After all the darkness, it felt amazing to be overwhelmed by the love that Riye was projecting. He did his best to respond in kind and saw Riye slowly relax in Cara’s hold.

“Didn’t mean to scare you,” he said quietly.

Cara visibly slumped.

“I know,” she said after a moment, head in her free hand. She took a deep breath and looked at him. “Apparently you’ve got a substantial case of Force exhaustion.”

Din repressed the urge to flinch at Cara’s casual mention of his abilities and had to remind himself that everyone knew now. It wasn’t a secret anymore.

“Marin says you’ll be fine,” Aikan spoke up from the end of the bed. She didn’t sound bothered by the mention of the Force and had clearly spoken to Marin herself. “You’ll be fine, so long as you rest.”

Under the strength of the twin glares of an exasperated medic and a well-meaning but frustrating friend, and combined with the headache and exhaustion, Din submitted, letting his head drop back properly onto the bed.

“I’m not going to argue with that.”

Aikan looked up again abruptly, behind her Tycho was now staring at him with wide eyes.

“Are you sure you didn’t hit your head?” she asked, hands already reaching for the scanner.

Din couldn’t help the chuckle that burst out of him, feeling the atmosphere lighten further. With the loss of tension, the Force felt less distant than before, and he took comfort in that as he slipped back into the welcoming arms of sleep.

He woke again to the Armourer waiting patiently at his bedside. His throat was parched but the headache was thankfully mostly gone. Someone had thoughtfully left a drink and a straw on the table beside the bed. Aikan, probably.

The Armourer’s attention shifted to him as he began to push himself up, testing the strength of his limbs. Once he was certain he was steady, he reached for the glass and downed it as quickly as his aching throat would allow.

As the Armourer moved, he spotted his saber clipped to her belt, which answered that question.

“How long?” he asked.

“Sixteen hours.”

“Fuck,” he said, he’d been asleep for most of a day?

What had happened whilst he’d been unconscious? He knew they had contacted Marin and with the rate gossip spread in the covert he imagined nearly everyone would know about her by now. And that wasn’t his only imminent problem. The boy’s parting words rang in his ears. A warning and a promise both. They’d have to act fast.

The Armourer just sighed, she seemed to be struggling with something. Din couldn’t bring himself to consider what sort of pressures the Armourer might be under right now.

“Din,” she said finally, “thank you.”

“What for?” he asked, confused. He hadn’t expected thanks.

The look she levelled at him burned right through him. “For defending us, regardless of the cost. We’ll need you in the time to come, whether they understand that or not.”

He knew she wasn’t just referring to the physical cost of the fight, evidenced in the bacta patch still on his arm, or the fatigue from pulling on the Force for far longer and harder than was really advisable simply to keep up with the boy.

He hadn’t been in any doubt that she would stand by him. The Armourer would defend any member of the Nevarro tribe without hesitation. They were her _aliit_ , her clan, her family.

The question was who she had already had to defend him against. Who amongst them would accept the knowledge that he was as close to _jetii_ as any Mandalorian had been in a long time, and that he had kept it from them all?

He couldn’t help but notice that she hadn’t offered him his saber. He understood why. Depending on how people responded to him, it might be better for him to appear as small of a threat as possible in the circumstances.

“This is the way,” he said softly. An acknowledgement.

The Armourer exhaled heavily and nodded.

“This is the way,” she agreed.

Behind her, the door slid open and Cara walked in, holding a wriggling Riye in her arms. Din took him from her without question, sensing his son’s need to be close and held him tight.

“ _Buir_?”

“I’m alright, _ad’ika_ ,” he soothed, lifting Riye in his arms until he could rest his forehead against his son’s. “ _Buir_ is alright.”

Riye was having none of it. His own emotions were in turmoil and there was no way that Riye had missed them this time.

“I protec’ you now,” said Riye, insistent. “My turn.”

Din couldn’t help but by warmed by not only the sentiment but the feeling of _love / safety / determination_ flooding through the bond. The mental image of Riye, so small, standing up to fully grown Mandalorians would get him through this, if nothing else.

“I know you will, Riye.”

The Armourer held out a padd, the one he had brought back with him from Rattatak.

“Cammi managed to decrypt the rest of this whilst you were sleeping. Marin’s been able to fill in some of the gaps with a contact of hers.”

“You got in touch with her?” he asked.

“She got in touch with us actually,” the Armourer corrected. “Something about feeling you pass out through a Force bond?”

Din felt a blush rising and hurriedly turned the padd so he could read, avoiding the subject. He knew a girlfriend joke was on the tip of Cara’s tongue.

Most of the information was out of date, but some of looked as though it would prove useful in understanding the motives and tactics of the apprentice and master Sith, as well as what exactly an inquisitor was.

A fallen Jedi, or Force-user raised in the dark side whose goal was to hunt down surviving Jedi to turn or, failing that, kill them – and then do the same for any Force-sensitive children they could find? Din decided pretty quickly that he really didn’t like the idea of inquisitors and he held Riye just that little bit tighter.

The other important piece of information that the padd held was that the decrypted conversations finally gave them a name for the boy who had tried to take Alema, who had threatened to kill them all.

Damien Zuril.

“We need to plan our next moves,” the Armourer said as he handed the padd back. “The council is waiting.”

Din nodded in agreement. The threat was on hold, but not defeated, Damien Zuril’s final words to him during their duel were proof of that.

“Moment of truth,” he said, standing up opposite the Armourer.

Beyond those doors were the remains of the Nervarro tribe and the new clan and he had no idea how they were going to respond to seeing him again, but if the confrontation the day before had proved anything, it was that he was at the centre of all this, whether he liked it or not.

The eyes of dozens of Mandalorian’s burned into his back as he followed the Armourer towards the forge and the council table. He felt their gazes flicking from his belt to the Armourers, searching for the saber, the atmosphere in the Force and the room thick, volatile and heavy. Riye was picking up on the tension as well and whimpered in his arms, seeking comfort. Din readjusted his grip on him in an attempt to calm him down. An unexpected show of power was only going to hinder rather than help them right now.

He could hear the whispers too and whilst some of them hurt, at least they weren’t calling him _darjetii_.

Trouble, when it came, surprisingly didn’t come from the new clan, but from the Nevarro covert which, he supposed, wasn’t really to be unexpected, considering the rhetoric many of them had grown up with under the wings of Death Watch.

“What’s he doing here? He’s a _jetii_! Our enemy!”

With a pang, he realised that he recognised the voice as one of the guards that he’d always got along with relatively well. Spurned on, a few other voices joined in.

“What’s to stop him turning on us?”

“Should we really be letting him out?”

He hunched in on himself and did his best to keep walking, to fix his gaze on the Armourer’s back and ignore everything else. They were almost at the table. No one was becoming overtly violent, at least not yet.

Defence came from the most unlikely source.

“Enough!” Paz’s voice rang through the room, effectively silencing the room as all attention turned to him. He was their commander after all. “Our _beroya_ has defended us to the point of collapse and you dare insult him?”

“But he’s _jetii_!” A small voice protested.

Well, he could at least set them right on that.

“I’m not _jetii_ , just Force-sensitive,” Din said, finally finding his voice. Around him, people tensed.

“As are two of our foundlings,” Paz said with a nod in his direction, taking his lead. Din watched as he lifted Alema into his arms. “You had no problem with Riye being raised as one of us and you all knew about him. Would you throw my _ad_ to the wolves just as quickly as you turn on Din?”

Oh, Din realised, that’s why Alema had been addressed as a foundling. It seemed that Paz of all people had voluntarily adopted a Force-sensitive child into his family. If he weren’t already shocked from the sudden and unexpected defence from one of the more vehement members of Nevarro covert, he imagined he’d had more energy to be surprised by that knowledge.

“ _Al’verde_ , we didn’t mean it like that,” someone offered weakly, their argument crumbling in front of them.

“Then why is Din Djarin any different?” Paz asked, and Din could feel righteous anger radiating off the man. It was strange to have it aimed at someone other than him. “Are we really so hypocritical? Or so quick to forget the stories of the darksaber?” Din forced himself not to tense at the mention of the blade that only he and the Armourer knew the current location of. “That one of my own clan, my ancestors, was a _jetii_ and we made him _Mand’alor_?”

Muttering had broken out across the room as Paz’s words worked their way into thick heads and previously firm convictions began to waver.

“Your _al’verde_ is right,” Samirr said from across the table and at the support from the new clan, who had actually faced a _darjetii_ , Din felt a vast weight lift from his shoulders. “We owe Din a great debt. Without him, I fear none of us would have survived.”

Din settled into his place next to Paz.

“Thank you,” he muttered to him and Samirr both.

Samirr gave him a respectful nod and Paz simply turned so that his larger form blocked out the sight of the dissenting parties. Slowly and reluctantly, the rebellious voices backed down in the face of the united council.

“Now that is settled, can we address the problem at hand?” the Armourer asked the rebuke in her tone clear and she lifted the padd.

Samirr nodded and indicated for her to take the lead.

“We don’t know where this Damien Zuril is hiding, nor the location of this inquisitor. Our own location is compromised.”

“Should we be expecting another attack?” Makana asked, eyes flicking between him and Paz and their children, the three Force-sensitives in the room in close proximity. “He was after Alema, and he failed to get her, right?”

“No,” Din offered, swallowing hard. “He’s not interested in Alema anymore. He’s interested in me. He said he’d come back for me.”

A few of the people around the table took in a sharp breath at that bombshell and he felt it ripple around the room. It was probably giving his opponents more ammunition but they deserved to know.

“What about your son?” Samirr asked, not unkindly.

“Nothing on the padd indicates that he knows about Riye,” Cammi said.

“He didn’t mention him either,” Din confirmed. “Just Alema. I don’t think he knows about Riye.”

The Armourer hummed in thought. “We may not be able to defend against another attack.”

“We could try and relocate? Leave a false trail?” Makana suggested.

“We’re not sure how much time we’ll have,” Paz responded.

“We have to try,” Makana argued back. “I’m not sure we could hold off another assault like that.”

As they bickered, Din’s thoughts were racing. The Force felt like it was prompting him to do something, but he couldn’t quite work out what.

He began to work through what he knew. The covert was in danger, children were at risk. Marin was at least a day’s travel away so even if they did ask her to come with back-up she might not get there in time – though it was worth asking anyway at this point. Damien Zuril wanted to bring him to his master as a prize.

Din’s thoughts stuttered to a halt. Was that it? The answer hiding in plain sight?

The Force wrapped around him, pushed him towards the conclusion he had already reached.

“Din?”

The table had gone quiet, he realised, whilst he had been musing through their problem.

“Do you have any ideas?” The Armourer prompted.

“I might have the beginnings of one,” he said, reaching for the holo-map and turning it around. “The kid wanted to come back to capture me, he said I’d make a better prize for his master.”

“So?” Paz asked.

“So, I say we let him.”

“Absolutely not,” the Armourer began but she fell silent as he held up a hand.

“Look, he wants me, he’ll be coming back for me whether we like it or not, and then he’ll be taking me to his master. I can’t beat him alone, I know that now, but what I can do is play into his hands. If I leave the covert and bait him into coming after me, it’ll reduce the risk that they’ll attack here. At the same time, you can track me back to their base, which will give us an advantage. We can take the fight to them.”

“And if they find the tracker?” Makana challenged. “Never mind the fact that we couldn’t defeat the kid, let alone a fully trained _darjetii_.”

“Marin,” he said simply. “Get in touch with her, ask her for backup. She’s a much better dueller than me and I know she has other fighters capable of standing up to a _darjetii_. We have a chance to get rid of this inquisitor and save other children from the same fate. As for the tracker problem, if it comes to it, she can track me through the Force bond.”

“The what?” he heard someone ask behind him.

The Armourer stared at him for a long moment and then sighed. “You’re certain Marin will come?”

Din thought of the promises they had made to each other on Nova, Cara’s teasing about their tentative move into a more romantic relationship, of the way she responded to his calls and cared for him. He thought of the ever-strengthening bond hovering in the back of his mind.

He thought of the Force, dancing, pushing and leading him and how Marin let it guide her too.

“Yes, I am.”


	7. The Hostage

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The plan was reckless, it was insane, there was no way it was going to well, but here he was.  
> Din faces the darjetii.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In order to rise, you must first hit the bottom.  
> Behold - new tag! This chapter deals with people trying to turn Din to the dark side so it's not all happy times, nothing explicit but please read with care. x

The plan was reckless, it was insane, there was no way it was going to well, but here he was.

The Razor Crest was quiet, too quiet for comfort, floating as he was just out of the gravitational pull of Bakura, close enough to maintain an orbit and just within sensor range of the hyperspace lane. Close enough that Damien Zuril would be able to pick up his signal, to be noticed, when the _darjetii_ returned.

If he got through this, Din was going to take a holiday, no matter what the Force suggested.

To their credit, none of the Mandalorian council had been especially happy with the plan, least of all Din. It was, after all, his own life he was putting on the line. He would be heading into enemy territory, alone, with very little idea what to expect beyond that Damien Zuril wanted to capture him alive. His only reassurance was that Marin’s presence was hovering at the back of him mind and that Cammi had taken the time to ensure he was outfitted with two trackers – one for Zuril to find and remove and one that would hopefully be overlooked.

Assuming Zuril took him back to their base to show him off to his mysterious master, it should be enough for the gathered Mandalorian attack group, bolstered by the small contingent of D’ai warriors from Nova and Marin’s friend, to follow.

Still, it was far from an ideal situation. There were too many variables, too many ways this could go wrong. If it weren’t for the insistence of the Force, he wouldn’t even have considered going through with it.

Marin had been equally unimpressed with his idea when he had got in contact to fill her in on the details. Her initial delight at seeing him well turned to confusion and then reluctance when he outlined what he intended to do.

She had tried to talk him out of it, to get him to wait for her, but that was time they weren’t sure they would have and, in the end, it was only by reminding Marin of her own mantra to follow the Force that he got her to concede at all.

“This the will of the Force,” he had said. “If I’m wrong, tell me.”

Marin had remained damningly silent.

“Be careful,” she had said. “I’m coming, as fast as I can. I’ll be with you soon.”

It wasn’t quite the same, sharing a Keldabe kiss over a holo, but it was better than nothing and her promises did help calm his nerves.

Saying goodbye to Riye was harder. They had meditated together, giving each other strength when one of them faltered, reaffirming the bond that seemed to run deeper every day. Still, it had been quite something to see Riye become grumpy with the Force, trying to berate it for taking his father away again so soon.

In the end though, the Force had soothed his son and Riye had finally let him go and in a strange way, Din was glad. It was good that Riye was learning to let go because one day he wouldn’t have a choice – their vastly different lifespans would make sure of that.

Now, though, miles away from his son with only the Force for company, Din could feel the nerves coming back.

The Force hadn’t led him astray yet, there was no reason that it would let him down now. There had to be a purpose in what was to come, a purpose that he couldn’t see, but that the Force could. He just had to trust it.

He was just reaching out to his bond with Marin, to check on her progress, still too far away for any meaningful communication, when the ship came out of hyperspace in front of him.

Even without the carbon scoring from a whole platoon worth of Mandalorian’s shooting at it, Din would have recognised it.

There was no mistaking the dark presence in the Force.

The comm beeped with an incoming message and for a moment he debated not answering but his son was relying on him, Alema, the whole covert.

He answered.

“Ah, Mandalorian,” Damien Zuril’s voice was as grating as he remembered. “We meet again.”

“ _Darjetii_ ,” he said, for lack of anything else.

Zuril’s face twitched. “Changed your mind, Mandalorian?”

Din swallowed and followed the script he had laid out for himself.

“I’d rather avoid conflict. It’s messy.”

“A shame,” Zuril said, gesturing to someone out of sight. A moment later, his ship was trapped in a tractor beam. He felt oddly like a fish on a line. “I like mess.”

Somehow, Din was not surprised.

“So, how is this going to go?” he asked, on the off chance Zuril was feeling like sharing.

“My master is most interested in you,” he said simply, giving very little away that he didn’t already know. “She would like to meet you. Although,” Zuril paused as, with a metallic clang, the dock engaged. There was no escape now. “I hope you don’t mind if I take some precautions.”

That, Din decided, would depend on the precautions.

Leaving the Crest behind was hard, but he didn’t have much of a choice with several dozen Imps surrounding the ship. As expected, he was searched, and as expected Zuril found the tracker he was meant to find.

“Nice try,” he said as he crushed the chip in his fist. “I’ll also be taking this for safekeeping, just for the time being.”

His saber didn’t look right in the hands of a _darjetii_ , Din decided as he followed Zuril to the bridge under armed guard, but at the moment his main worries were going unfounded. The second tracker had indeed gone under the radar and, so far, Zuril had not attempted to cut him off from the Force. The cuffs around his wrists were normal, not suppressors.

For now, Damien Zuril needed him alive and uninhibited. As they jumped back to hyperspace, taking him away from Bakura, Riye, and Marin, Din could only hope that requirement lasted.

Din didn’t recognise the planet that came into view. Considering the number of planets in the galaxy that wasn’t necessarily a problem and they hadn’t been in hyperspace particularly long, which meant that rescue, when it came, would be closer. Nonetheless, he would have preferred to know.

They landed outside a structure that looked as though it had seen better days, judging by the rusted remnants of battle droids, it had been damaged in the war and never really fixed.

It wasn’t the state of the structure that concerned him though, it was the way the Force felt. It had the same twisted, broken feeling that had encompassed the temple on Rattatak and it sent a shiver down his spine.

He found himself seeking out the light of his bond with Riye and clinging to it to push through the darkness.

Once they were inside, the Imps broke off and headed off into different parts of the facility and he took some pleasure in the knowledge that the tracker still on his person was broadcasting his location to the covert. He was certain the Mandalorians would appreciate the chance to repay the Imps in kind for the Night of a Thousand Tears.

Finally, Damien Zuril led him into a room and, motivated by the press of one gun of the remaining guards at his back, Din followed.

He was not looking forward to meeting a proper _darjetii_ if Zuril was merely an apprentice.

The Force, what little of it that remained untainted, wrapped tightly around him for a moment, blanketing him in a brief brush of comfort and peace.

Before Din could question, he spotted what was in the room beyond and suddenly he understood why the Force had been so insistent he come. There were children here, bright in the Force, not yet broken. What there wasn’t, was a _darjetii_ master.

Instead, Zuril headed for a holo table and activated it.

Din could barely restrain his relief. His combat training hadn’t been overly extensive, he and Marin had barely scratched the surface of the saber forms. Outside of combat, he could deal with Damien Zuril.

Then the person, if you could really call them that, on the other end of the holo picked up and Din got his first good look at a true Sith.

Zuril immediately dropped into a deep bow and pressure on the back of his neck forced him to at least incline his head towards the figure, even though it went against everything he knew.

“Mistress,” Zuril said as he straightened. “I have brought the one I spoke of for your judgement.”

The figure’s attention snapped to him.

Din stood as still as he could, well aware that he was at a significant disadvantage. Even with the Force, his hands were cuffed and Zuril had both sabers. For now, it was best to play along and learn what he could about his opponents. If he was going to survive this, he’d have to play it carefully.

“A Mandarlorian,” she said and Din could almost feel her eyes burning through him, even over the holo, “how interesting.”

“He has a saber and some training,” Damien said. “He is strong in the Force.”

The figure hummed. “Greetings, Mandalorian. I am the Fourth Sister,” she said. “Former inquisitor for the Empire and apprentice of Darth Vader.” She examined him for a moment. “Do you know why my apprentice has brought you here?”

“No,” he replied, it seemed best to his answers honest and short.

“Not to matter,” she said, “you will understand soon enough.”

Din felt another shudder run through him at the words, but already her attention had moved on and the strange oppressive feel in the air relaxed a little.

“He could be useful to us,” Damien began. “He has already located one sensitive child.”

The implications of that statement didn’t bear thinking about.

“You have done well, my young apprentice,” the Fourth Sister said, the words twisting and tearing through the room. “The children have been useful but ultimately difficult to find and timely to train. This discovery is unexpected but not unwelcome.”

“Thank you, mistress.”

The Fourth Sister gave Zuril a smile, a crooked and broken thing.

“You are almost ready, my apprentice,” she said as Zuril rose out of another bow. “It is time that you prove to me that you have mastered my training.”

“Anything, mistress.”

The worst thing was that Zuril sounded so eager, so sincere. He was latching onto the smallest hint of praise from this Fourth Sister. It made Din wonder how lonely he must have been, how misguided, to have fallen under the sway of one so vile.

The Fourth Sister’s eyes lifted and Din did his best to stand tall and strong. He wouldn’t show weakness in front of her.

“Break him.”

The waiting was the worst.

Zuriel had escorted him to a cell after ending the call with the Fourth Sister and left, presumably to plan how he was going to break a Mandalorian. Din took the time to prepare himself for what was to come, ensconcing himself in the strength the Force offered him.

He knew a little of what to expect. He had brushed with the dark side before, after all. He knew how easily it could become a siren call in the right circumstances.

Even so, he wasn’t expecting Zuril to start with the fall of the Jedi temple on Coruscant. The _darjetii_ took great joy in reciting what had happened after the fateful calling of ‘order sixty-six’, of soldiers killing younglings in great detail.

Din knew. He’d seen the security tapes. It had disgusted him then and it disgusted him now. He pushed it down.

“I sensed such anger in you,” Zuril snapped, pacing up and down in front of his cell. “Such fear. Where is that anger now? They cut down your people like they were vermin.”

Still, Din didn’t respond. Zuril’s line of questioning revealed that, in this at least, Din held a couple of advantages. For one, Zuril was assuming that he was, or had at some point, been a Jedi. He could see why, he was old enough to have been a youngling at the end of the war. The second, was that because of this assumption, he was trying to exploit a connection that wasn’t there.

As much as Din hated the men who had orchestrated the slaughter of children, they were not his people. He hadn’t been there. His traumas lay elsewhere, out of Zuril’s sight.

Frustrated, Zuril tried another tactic.

“Just imagine,” he said and Din had a bad feeling about this. “That little Twi’lek girl might meet the same fate. There’s nothing to stop me going back for her. You could barely stop me last time.”

It was the first crack in his armour that Zuril had found because he could, all to easily imagine what would happen if Zuril went back. He’d seen it on Rattatak it had played in his nightmares ever since. Alema, dead. Riye, stolen.

“That’s it,” Zuril taunted. “Draw on your fear, on your hatred. What you would be willing to do to stop me?”

Din gasped as, in what he would later see as a great twist of irony, Zuril’s own words broke him from his struggle. With a shove, he forced the tendrils of dark away, so much quicker to rise here, so much easier to overlook.

If he hadn’t skirted close it before, he might not even have recognised it until it was too late.

His recovery clearly annoyed Zuril, but the boy was still looking smug for some reason.

“So quick to emotion,” he mused aloud. “This will be easy. Where is your precious code now?”

In the centre of the writhing mass of darkness that he had narrowly evaded, Din clung to the light, repeating simple mantras to himself to stay focused. The Force nudged, and Din followed.

It was time to play one of his cards.

“In the Force, all things,” Din recited out loud. “Emotion and peace, knowledge and passion, courage and love, life and death.”

Outside his cell, Zuril abruptly stilled.

“That’s not the Jedi code,” he said with a frown and there was the first hint of confusion there amongst the frustration. Din had wrong-footed him. Zuril had been expecting a Jedi, had planned for a Jedi. He hadn’t got one.

“I’m no Jedi.”

Time passed strangely in the cell. Din had no idea how long he’d been there, alternating between sitting and pacing.

The revelation that he was not, and never had been, a Jedi had earned him a reprieve. No doubt Zuril had contacted his mistress and was doing some digging into the creed he had shared, trying to find another angle of attack. Din was content to let him. Every moment he wasted trying to find a way to get under his skin was time that the covert would be using to reach him. All he had to do now was stall.

Din was getting thirsty, the guards outside his cell had changed at least once. He didn’t bother asking for water. He couldn’t afford to show weakness here.

The monotony was broken when the ray shielding over his cell shut off and Damien Zuril walked in and Din tensed, reading for a fight, if it came to it.

Then Zuril’s hands reached not to inflict violence, as Din had expected, but to run across his armour. It was almost a caress and made him feel immensely uncomfortable, the tension in his muscles doubled.

Zuril, it would seem, had finally done his research.

“Beskar is such a beautiful material,” Zuril said to start. “I can understand why Mandalorians place such a high value upon it. I was not expecting it to be capable of stopping a lightsaber, I must admit, but that only adds to its worth. It would certainly come in handy in a duel.” Zuril traced the edge of the mudhorn signet on his shoulder. “And what is this?”

Din hesitated but decided it was one of the few questions Zuril had put to him that there was no harm in answering. The Force gave no warning.

“A mudhorn.”

“Truly, a formidable foe,” Zuril said, and, with a final caress, he broke contact and moved away.

Din tried not to let his relief show either in his posture, or in the Force.

His armour and his signet had been earned through years of hard work and dedication, and Zuril’s touch, brief though it had been, had skirted the edge of defilement. Just the thought that one so dark had shown interest in something so intrinsic to his identity as a Mandalorian tugged at him and it took some effort to settle and release his emotion to the Force as Marin had taught him.

Having failed to gain a response from the examination, Zuril moved on to a different tactic. He strolled back to stand in front of him and Din kept himself very still in anticipation of he wasn’t sure what. They were almost eye to eye.

“I wonder how much it truly means to you.”

Then Zuril went for his helmet and it took everything Din had not to react.

For so long, his helmet had been his safety. To remove it in front of others an affront worthy of exile, to lose it to an enemy an unacceptable weakness.

If Zuril had found him a mere week ago, this would have been it, Din knew that with a certainty that sat uncomfortably in the bottom of his stomach. Given the choice between becoming _dar’manda_ and giving up a little of himself to delay until help arrived, Din knew, to his shame, which he would have chosen.

Considering the kid hadn’t expected beskar to stand up to a saber, he wasn’t sure how well versed he was in Mandalorian culture. It was possible he knew the importance of a Mandalorian’s helmet but even if he didn’t, it was still a bold move. The boy wasn’t playing around anymore.

Zuril grabbed the sides of his helmet and started to lift it.

Din forced himself not to move, not to gasp. He closed his eyes and reminded himself that to be helmetless was no longer to give up the Creed. There was another way. This was not the end.

The seals broke and the musty air of the stronghold seeped in, unfiltered.

He thought of Samirr, Makana and Bran. He thought of the Armourer’s acceptance of them, of her understanding of the different ways of adhering to the Resol’nare, of her praise for his ability to adapt. He thought of the lessons of his childhood, ingrained but not irrefutable.

He thought of the possibility of showing Alema who he truly was, of letting Cara tousle his hair. Of sharing a Keldabe kiss skin to skin with Marin.

This was not the end.

The helmet dropped down with such speed that it smacked into his skull hard enough to make his ears ring. It gave him an immediate headache and, undoubtably, a bruise to match.

For a moment, Din was too stunned to do anything. Zuril hadn’t removed his helmet, hadn’t got far enough to see his face.

Why had he stopped?

“Nothing,” Zuril spat, spinning around and pacing, his presence in the Force a mass of writhing anger. “I try to take away everything that makes you Mandalorian and you do nothing.”

“This is the way,” he said, just because he could.

Zuril stopped and glared at him, the darkness around him swelling with every moment. The Force was screaming with the weight of it. Then, Zuril took a deep breath, as though preparing himself for something.

“There are other ways to break you.”

That was all the warning Din had and he threw up his shields – firm as beskar, unbreakable – just in time as darkness and sharpness and hate slammed into them in a relentless attack that seemed to go on and on forever.

Din was exhausted.

The only reason he hadn’t fallen yet was Marin because as much as the boy knew about attacking someone else’s mind, Zuril was an apprentice and Marin was a master and Marin had trained him to keep even her out.

He had no idea how long it had been, nor how many times he had been forced to keep the _darjetii_ out of his head. His shields had cracked a couple of times and the brief moments where Zuril had nearly broken through had been full of pain and visions of terrible things that had left him shaking long after Zuril had left to replenish his strength for his next assault.

Din wasn’t sure how much longer he could resist. It could have been hours; it could have been days. He was rapidly reaching the end of his rope. He had stalled as long as he could.

Now, in this moment, the calm before the storm, he pleaded with the Force to tell him that he’d done enough, that the rescue team was about to arrive but to no avail. The Force here was difficult to communicate with at best and it was getting harder to grasp as the darkness closed in.

As with the last, the new attack came without warning and Din knew even before his shields were fully up that they were already fractured.

The Force, which had kept him going for so long, had finally failed him.

Instinctively, Din reached for the only light he had left, the bright glowing spots deep at the back of his mind, locked away behind the tightest shields he was capable of constructing. Marin had once taught him that when it came to shields, it was focus that was important, so he sunk into the comfort they offered and let everything else fall away.

Nothing else mattered, not the pain, not the fatigue, not the _darjetii_ , nothing.

Help me, he thought, I can’t do this any longer. I’m not strong enough.

He was not expecting any response. Riye was too far away and his bond with Marin was not fully developed, but still he hoped.

A moment later, Marin’s Force presence flooded into him. After so long in the dark, her light was almost overwhelming and for a second, the attack, which now felt so distant, paused. The thought that this meant the covert might be close, that this clarity of connection shouldn’t be possible, didn’t even occur to him.

“They won’t break you, Din.”

Her voice in his head was like finding water in the desert and he was a man drowning.

“I can’t,” he choked across the tenuous bond. “I don’t want to fall.”

“You won’t.” There was conviction and confidence in the words, in the thought. “You won’t fall Din Djarin. If you were going to, you would have done a long time ago. Your attachments are your strength, Din. You have me, and more importantly, you have Riye. He gives you the strength to fight the battles you think you cannot.”

“Marin – I –”

“I know. Hold on just a little longer, Din. We’re coming for you.”

Marin started to fade away and Din panicked for a moment before he remembered her words and he pushed through the ache and reached out again, out to Riye.

Even over a distance of stars, he could feel the light of his son’s presence and he clung to it. It was too far for him to talk with his son, but it was enough to feel the love pouring out of the other side of the bond and if he focused on that, on his connection with his son, he could hold on, just a little longer, for his family.

With Riye, he could do this.

Then, suddenly, he didn’t need to.

The alarms were going off, the darkness lifted and Din had just enough fortitude to return to himself, to the present, to feel the light of Nova’s forces approaching.


	8. The Balance

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In between the dark and the light, there is balance.  
> Rescue arrives, the time has come.  
> Din's time has come.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is it. It's going down. Enjoy!

The blaring alarms were not in any way shape or form helping Din’s headache as Zuril dragged him along the corridor by the cuffs around his wrists.

By this point, Din didn’t really have any strength left to resist but he was glad that, once again, the cuffs weren’t blocking his access to the Force, dark and twisted though it was. It meant that he could feel the glowing light of Marin’s presence approaching and love echoing through his bond with Riye and between them they were probably the only things keeping him on his feet.

If the Force had given Zuril any indication of addition of Nova D’ai fighters than he wasn’t showing it.

“It was foolish of your friends to come here,” Zuril said with a snarl as they turned a corner. “They will all die.”

“You underestimate my friends,” Din replied, doing his best to keep up.

Zuril jerked to a halt and Din stumbled as the hold on his cuffs abruptly loosened, leaving him once again standing mostly under his own power. He had to lock his knees to keep from falling as one of the guards took over from the _darjetii_ , taking hold of his shoulder with the threat of a blaster at his back should he even think about moving.

They were back in the main room, the entrance of which was being guarded by some of the Imps that he had seen on the way in.

He had no idea why Zuril had decided to bring him along – as a hostage maybe, or a convenient human shield – but Din intended to make it as difficult for him as possible.

“How did they find us?” Zuril demanded.

“We don’t know, sir.”

One of the Imps had stepped forward, clearly the one in charge. “We disabled the tracker that the Mandalorian carried with him.”

Din felt a warm rush of satisfaction that the secondary tracker Cammi had designed had clearly done its job.

“No matter,” Zuril said as though it didn’t faze him, though Din felt differently, he could feel the confusion and anger radiating from the man. “We will dispose of them. Their deaths will be a warning to anyone else stupid enough to take on the might of the Sith and the Empire.”

“Yes, sir!”

The Imp saluted and backed away, organising his limited forces. It was clear they would be relying on Zuril to do most of the damage which gave Din hope. If Marin was able to engage Zuril, he doubted the Imps would stand a chance against a group of trained Mandalorian warriors.

Zuril who, in his arrogance, had either not bothered to check for other Force-sensitives, or thought that he could take them. Well, Din thought, he was in for a surprise.

In the distance, there was an explosion.

“They’ve breached the perimeter,” said one of the Imps by the doors.

“Let them come,” Zuril said, pulling out his lightsaber and igniting it.

The crystals inside it were screaming and Din couldn’t quite hold back the wince at the additional spike of darkness but in reaching for his lightsaber Zuril had given away a piece of information that Din hoped he would live long enough to make him regret.

Din’s own saber was attached to the back of Zuril’s belt, intact. If it weren’t for the cuffs, he might even have risked attempting to use the Force to summon it.

Instead, he reached for Marin, hoping to warn her of what to expect. Before he could form a thought or an image, his headache flared and reminded him that he had already pushed himself further than ever before, but some of what he meant to see must have bled through because in return he got a rush of reassurance and confidence, light and pride and something else he couldn’t quite place.

“We’ve got incoming!”

Zuril stepped forward but before he could get further than a few steps away something hit the door. Everyone in the room except Zuril froze, expecting an explosion, maybe. Only, there was no explosion.

Instead, the banging sound came again, and again. Rhythmic, like a drum beat. Then more sounds joined in, the muffed sound of fists on beskar.

And singing.

‘ _Dha Werda Verda a'den tratu, Manda'yaim kandosii adu. Duum motir ca'tra nau tracinya. Gra'tua cuun hett su dralshy'a._ ’

Din felt his breath catch in his throat.

Every Mandalorian raised in the fighting corps had been taught the _Dha Werda Verda_. It was as much a part of Mandalorian culture as the beskar they wore and the spicy foods they cooked. Part war chant, part dance, part exercise in discipline and teamwork, Din hadn’t heard it sung in over a decade.

The need to hide, to preserve themselves, had meant that taking part in the _Dha Werda Verda_ was to risk being discovered. It was noisy and showy and meant to intimidate.

Yet, outside the doors, two Mandalorian groups who had at first been so confrontational and suspicious of each other were presenting a united front.

If anything good came out of this, Din was glad that they were once again strong enough in number to consider performing the ancient song of war.

It had certainly intimidated the Imps.

The guards at the door were shrinking back behind what little cover they could find. Only the _darjetii_ remained seemingly unmoved, although he was glaring at the barrier between him and the Mandalorian rescue force with renewed intensity, not so much intimidated as annoyed.

“Open the door,” Zuril ordered.

“Sir?”

“Do it!”

The Imp looked reluctant but nevertheless reached for the controls.

“If you join me,” Zuril said, in what had to be one last attempt to fulfil his master’s command, “I will spare them.”

Din didn’t believe that for a second.

“Never.”

His voice sounded hoarse and worn but there was no mistaking the contempt behind it.

“Perhaps feeling your people die needlessly when you could have prevented it will make you reconsider,” Zuril spat. “My master is coming. By the time she arrives, they will all be dead, and you will be mine.”

Then the door opened and all hell broke loose because the first thing through the door was not a Mandalorian with a blaster as the Imps had expected but the glow of a familiar teal lightsaber.

Marin.

The teal was joined by two glowing white blades, a green, a purple, and a blue and with the humming sound of sabers came a sudden and powerful wave of light in the Force that almost knocked him over with its intensity.

Zuril, already caught off guard, stumbled backwards with the strength of it, his Force signature swirling with a maelstrom of emotions as he realised where his arrogance had led him.

The guard behind Din had also been slowly and carefully retreating and with the renewed light of the Force filling his senses, he finally made his move. The binders fizzled and cracked under the pressure as he channelled power to crush the components keeping them active and then he was reaching.

Zuril moved, but he wasn’t fast enough and his hand closed on thin air as Din’s saber snapped into his hand, the comforting golden glow igniting and illuminating him as, behind the Nova D’ai, Mandalorian warriors moved in, blasters covering the Imps, ready to fire with maximum prejudice.

He was outnumbered and outmatched and they all knew it.

“This is impossible,” Zuril hissed, stepping backwards, trying to get out of the pincer movement he was caught in with Din and Marin approaching from either side. “The Jedi are gone, the Emperor killed them all!”

One of the fighters stepped forward, the one with the twin white blades. This, Din realised, must be the friend Marin had mentioned, the Togruta.

“We are not Jedi,” she said, her eyes burning.

Zuril was in full retreat now, but he was running out of places to go. The door to the hallway was out of reach, blocked by Marin, the way to the cells guarded by Din.

Desperate men were unpredictable.

Din remembered this slightly too late to do anything to stop it. Zuril suddenly reached for the Force, lashing out with the dark, forcing them all back a step and then, instead of attacking, he reached out and up.

Above him, the ceiling began to crack and fall, the Imps were running, the Mandalorians were pursuing.

“Shavit,” Marin said and he could feel her attention shift from Zuril as the D’ai collectively brought their attention to trying to hold the ceiling up with the Force.

They weren’t quite fast enough.

Marin’s face, twisted in a expression of panicked focus was the last thing he saw before the roof came down and darkness took him.

“Din? Din!”

The world faded in and out in starts and stutters. His ears were ringing, his limbs felt heavy, the filters in his helmet weren’t enough to block the smell of dust and rubble.

“Din, can you hear me?”

Someone was calling his name, the voice was familiar.

He wanted nothing more than to go back to sleep, to finally rest. The Force was light once more and he felt safe for the first time in days and he just wanted to close his eyes and let it take him, but something nagged at him, something important, something that was screaming at him to fight.

“That’s it!” The voice called again. “Come back to me, Din.”

He forced his eyes to open and found himself in darkness. Above him was a large slab of concrete held up by part of a duarsteel support which was probably the only reason he hadn’t been crushed.

The voice was calling his name again.

“Marin?” he asked, and immediately coughed as the dust in the air irritated his lungs.

There was a pulse in the back of his mind, the sense of a well-known presence brushing up against his own, a channel of energy and warmth bolstering his waning strength.

A light suddenly appeared and he did his best to turn towards it. There was a small gap in the fallen pieces of ceiling and someone was shining a torch through it.

“Found him!”

That was Cara, he’d known her voice anywhere.

“Stand aside.”

Before Din could ask what Marin meant, the Force seemed to gather around her and suddenly the small gap wasn’t so small anymore. It took his eyes a moment to adjust to the sudden brightness but when they did for a moment, he couldn’t quite believe what he was seeing.

Marin was standing there, a frown on her face, eyes closed, lifting what seemed to be half of the roof with the Force singlehandedly. Even as he watched, with a calculated twist of her hands the debris was flung aside and settled harmlessly in a corner.

If Din’s mouth had been dry before it was dry now in a very different way. It was such a casual, effortless display of control and power.

“Kark,” he croaked.

Marin’s eyes snapped open and a moment later she was kneeling beside him.

“Din,” she said, “are you alright?”

Her hands were a blur, flying over him, checking for injuries. When she didn’t find any, she helped him carefully pull himself up until he was sat, but even then, she didn’t let go of him. The gently presence at the back of his mind continued to radiate strength and light and worry and - love.

Oh. That’s what he had felt earlier but hadn’t quite understood.

Their conversation on Nova floated to the front of his mind. It seemed so long ago, when in reality it had been barely a week. Whatever you’re willing to give, she had said.

Swallowing, he reached for her, pulling her closer until they met in a Keldabe kiss even as he reached for the bond between them, which was already so much stronger, and sent back a rush of affection, of his love, and an impression, as best he could manage, of what the gentle press of his helmet against her headdress meant in his culture.

“Din,” she said, soft, low and wonderous.

“I’m fine, _cyar’ika_ ,” he replied, answering the unasked question, the Mando’a endearment falling easily from his lips.

Behind them, someone loudly cleared their throat.

“As touching as this is, we need to get a move on if we want to catch the _darjetii_.”

Paz sounded amused and Din looked up to find a large group of Mandalorians watching them, including to his embarrassment the Armourer, Aikan, and half of the new clan, with a mixture of awkwardness and open humour.

“Did you drop something?”

Cara’s hand came into his line of vision, holding a very familiar saber hilt.

“You _osik_ ,” he said, even as he reached out to take it.

“Come on, up you get.”

With Cara and Marin’s help, he managed to stand on shaky legs.

“We might have a bigger problem on our hands,” said Marin’s friend from across the room.

“Ahsoka?” Marin asked, her attention jumping back to the situation at hand, though her hand lingered in his as she pulled away from him.

“We’ve got company,” Ahsoka said, frowning and tilting her head in a way Din recognised as someone listening to the Force.

“The inquisitor,” Marin confirmed a moment later.

Ahsoka’s expression shifted to something that Din could only describe as feral and he was abruptly and forcefully reminded that Togruta were a predator species.

“She’s mine,” Ahsoka said, turning to confront the distant and dark presence that he could just about sense.

“No arguments here,” Marin replied, snapping into leadership mode. “Din, any idea where Zuril might have gone?”

He thought for a moment, trying to recall what he had seen of the base before he had been locked away in his cell. They had passed through a number of rooms before they had reached the communications room where he had called his master, but he wouldn’t go there now, his master was already here. Then he remembered what else he had seen in that room.

“The children,” he gasped. “There are children here.”

“Children?” The Armourer asked as the assembled Mandalorians stiffened.

“He’s keeping Force-sensitive children,” Din explained, pointing in the direction of the comms centre, “down there. I think they were intending to train them in the dark side.”

“Not on my watch,” Paz said to a chorus of agreement.

Marin hummed. “Alright, Paz, Samirr, can your group focus on getting the children out?”

“I’d be our pleasure,” Samirr said, clearly as riled by the idea of the _darjetii_ hurting children as the rest of the Mandalorians had been.

“Saoirse,” Marin said, addressing the three D’ai who had decided to join the rescue team, “you lead the search for Zuril.”

“On it.”

“I’ll come with you,” Marin said to Paz, “in case Zuril turns up.”

Din, who had up until that point been content to let Marin take the lead felt the Force nudge him, direct him to where he needed to be and he followed it without hesitation.

“No, I’ll go with them,” he said, pulling away from Cara’s support.

“Din,” Marin protested but he cut her short.

“I can do this, _cyar’ika_.” Reassurance and love over the bond. “Ahsoka needs you more.”

For a moment Din thought Marin was going to argue the point but whatever the Force had said to him, it was clearly saying the same to Marin because she sighed and the fight dropped out of her.

“You’re right,” she said, reaching for his hand and giving it a brief squeeze. “May the Force be with you.”

“And with you.”

There was a weight to the words that passed between them. It felt almost like a vow.

Din led the team of Mandalorians through the corridors, letting his memory and the Force guide him in equal measures. Compared to the suns that were Marin and Ahsoka, the children were flickering candles and he was finding it hard to focus on them.

Thankfully, the walls and doors were looking familiar enough that he was knew they were close.

He turned the final corner and stopped dead. The door, which was heavy duty and clearly meant to keep intruders out, was shut and locked.

He heard Makana asking for Bran, the best slicer amongst them.

“Wait,” he said, reaching for his saber. “There’s not enough time. I’ve got a better idea.”

Sabers were useful for things other than duelling, he had learned that years ago when the heat of a blade had cauterised a wound that might otherwise have killed him, and that had been on the lowest setting.

He ignited the blade and pushed it through the metal. It sunk in easily, like cutting through butter as he pulled it around to create an entrance large enough for the Mandalorians to get through.

“Kriff that’s cool,” Kessi murmured somewhere behind him as he ran the blade down the final side.

The door fell in with a very definitive thud and Din stepped back to let the Armourer and Paz lead the way, standing guard on the off chance that Zuril had decided to come back for the children.

Inside the room he heard quiet voices as frightened children were coaxed out from under beds and behind closets, then the first Mandalorians emerged from the room with their precious cargo held tight in their arms.

He waited until all but Paz and the Armourer had made it out and counted eleven children in all, of various ages and races, clinging tight to their rescuers.

Paz came through the doorway a moment later, leading the final child by the hand and the moment they were clear he reached down and hoisted the little boy up into his arms, wrapping one arm firmly around him so he could still hold his blaster in the other.

“Is that everyone?” he asked the Armourer as she slipped out behind Paz.

“We have all the children,” she confirmed.

Now all they had to do was get out and hope that Marin and Ahsoka had been able to deal with the inquisitor. He could still feel Marin through the bond which assured him that she was alive, if distracted. Still duelling, then.

“With me,” he said.

The fastest way out was back through the main room and if the two Togruta could keep the inquisitor busy, they should be able to slip by and get back to the ships and once the children were safe, Din could go and give them a hand if they needed it.

It was a risky plan but the Force was nudging him again, urging him to follow this path, so he led the way.

They didn’t hit any snags until they got back to the main room itself. Across the room, Marin and Ahsoka were engaging the inquisitor in a deadly dance of blades so fast Din could barely follow it. More importantly, their path to the exit was clear and he was just about to indicate that they should make a run for it when a problem presented itself in the form of a _darjetii_ apprentice appearing and blocking their route to freedom.

“Kriff,” Din cursed. Saorise and her group hadn’t found him in time. With a series of quick hand gestures he indicating that the Mandalorians should get behind him and he could hear them forming a protective huddle around the children.

Damien Zuril watched them with a pleased expression.

“You didn’t really think we’d let you leave so easily, did you?” he taunted even as the few remaining Imp soldiers took up positions behind him.

“ _Beyora_?” Makana asked.

“Focus on the Imps,” he said. “let me deal with the _darjetii_.”

The Mandalorians didn’t hesistate to open fire as Zuril approached them, red lightsaber cutting through the air with a whine.

“I’m going to enjoy this,” Zuril said.

“So am I,” Din shot back as he once again allowed himself to sink into the Force.

Where before it had been a struggle, a fight against the oppressive nature of the dark, whatever Marin and Ahsoka had done had pushed the darkness back and Din let the light now overflowing the building fill him and restore him. The Force sung.

He was ready.

Zuril’s eyes narrowed as his blade ignited and with a growl, the _darjetii_ attacked, but he was sloppy in a way he hadn’t been before and Din realised that just as the attacks on his shields had drained him, they had drained Zuril too, and now Din had the advantage of the light whilst the dark that Zuril was drawing upon was weakened.

Their duel was much better matched this time. The Force guided his movements and he felt strangely at peace even as blaster bolts flew around them and a duel of much larger proportions was building across the room.

It was almost as though he could anticipate each of Zuril’s movements before he could make them and had the time to manoeuvre his saber into the right positions with supernatural speed. The katas that Marin had taught him combined with his Mandalorian combat training to create a fighting style that was as unique as it was unpredictable and with every clash of their blades, he could feel Zuril moving more and more towards the defensive.

He almost had him, only a few more steps.

Pain, bright and burning, blossomed in the back of his mind and it took him a second to realised it wasn’t his own, but Marin’s.

The moment of distraction was all it took to break his focus and turn the tables.

He fumbling to block the next blow, caught in his panic and fear for his friend and partner, who had thrown up shields to cut the feedback he had been feeling, and before he stood stop it, the next swing of Zuril’s saber caught not the golden blade, but the handle, slicing it neatly in two.

His saber fizzled and died and he dropped the remains of the handle before the residual heat could burn his hand, suddenly defenceless.

With the split second that was available to him before what he suspected would be his sudden and painful death he reached for the Force and commanded it to push, hoping to shove Zuril far enough away to gain him some time.

He wasn’t fast enough but, to his surprise, rather than kill him, Zuril turned his Force push against him and threw him backwards towards the group of Mandalorians and he felt the arms of one of the warriors catching him.

A moment later there was a cut off gasp and he felt someone fly past him as the _darjetii_ pulled them towards him.

Before he could so much as blink the red blade was brought to bare on the vulnerable throat of the Armourer, who was struggling fiercely in Zuril’s hold, refusing to go down without a fight.

“No,” he gasped, scrambling for the Force, for anything, he couldn’t let the Armourer die, he couldn’t let her down.

“I told you that you would watch them all die,” Zuril snarled, as he drew back his arm in preparation to strike.

The next few seconds passed in what felt like slow motion. The Force, which had been momentarily alluding him returned with a rush and peace once again settled over him. He followed the whisperings of the Force and spotted what it had been urging him to see.

The darksaber was hooked onto the Armourer’s belt, just out of sight.

She might have saved them all.

 _Now_ the Force urged.

“Thora,” he called, “ _at daab_!”

The Armourer responded instantly, shoving her elbow back and ducking down as far as she could in Zuril’s loosened hold and as she did so, Din held out his hand and reached one last time, calling the darksaber to his hand as he ran forwards.

The black blade caught Zuril’s just before it could reach the Armourer and Din shoved backwards with all his strength, forcing Zuril to let go of the Armourer to block the next swing of the darksaber and just like that they were back to exchanging blows only whatever advantage Din had commanded before, he had lost it and Marin’s jarring absence continued to throw him off balance.

 _Balance_ the Force whispered, which made no sense, he knew he was off balance and he was trying. He unleashed a series of blows that briefly put Zuril on the defensive and in the pause in the duel the Force spoke to him, clearer than it ever had before.

_Emotion and peace, knowledge and passion, courage and love, life and death._

And suddenly he understood.

He reached for the calm, the peace, and instead of pushing down his emotions, he channelled them. He drew upon his anger and he drew upon his love.

 _Balance_.

In between the light and the dark he walked a tightrope of power. He saw the moves, predicted them, countered them. It was enough to give him the edge he needed. And then it was all over.

Zuril stopped moving with a pained gasp and Din emerged from the fog of the Force to meet the _darjetii_ ’s pained eyes as the darksaber slid back out from his chest, leaving a gaping hole in its wake.

Distantly, he heard an enraged scream being abruptly cut off and a moment later the atmosphere seemed to lift further as the lingering darkness began to fade away.

He was falling.

The world was fading.

He had finally overstretched himself.

_Sleep_ said the Force. _Rest. Recover._

Arms, warm and familiar and full of light wrapped around him, catching him before he could hit the floor. Marin’s voice calling his name, Marin’s presence flooding back into his mind. Riye reaching for him, plucking at their bond.

An awed whisper breaking out of the murmurs behind him.

“ _Mand’alor_.”

Then nothing.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Mando'a translations:
> 
> "Dha Werda Verda a'den tratu, Manda'yaim kandosii adu. Duum motir ca'tra nau tracinya. Gra'tua cuun hett su dralshy'a." - We are the rage of The Warriors of the Shadow, The first noble sons of Mandalore. Let all those who stand before us light the night sky in flame. Our vengeance burns brighter still. 
> 
> Dha Werda Verda - warriors of the shadow (an ancient Mandalorian war chant)  
> cyar-ika - beloved  
> at daab - get down (lit. move down)


	9. The Mand'alor

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A new age for the Mandalorian people begins.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In celebration of the arrival of series two tomorrow, here's the final chapter!  
> A massive thank you to everyone who had followed me on this little AU journey over the last year - please enjoy the final installement in all its fluffy goodness. I can't quite believe it's over!

The first thing he saw was green and two bright eyes blinking at him through the visor. The first thing he felt was an overwhelming sense of warmth and safety and the feeling of the Force, once so mysterious and scary but now as familiar to him as his own armour, cocooning him.

He could hear the sounds of voices outside speaking a mixture of Mando’a and Basic, the gentle beeps of monitors that helped him orientate himself.

The covert. Medbay.

“ _Buir_! You’re awake!”

Riye.

Instinctively, he reached up to steady Riye where he was balancing atop his chest plate and was pleasantly surprised to find that there was only a mild ache of tired muscles to accompany the movement.

“Hello, _ad’ika_ ,” he said, hands brushing over ears, smoothing down robes, and relished the rush of affection that flourished through the bond.

His son was safe and happy and that, more than anything else, told him that everything was going to be alright.

“Well, look who’s finally decided to renter the land of the living.”

Din looked up and promptly did a double take, blinking as though that would make the image in front of him change. The voice he knew well, he’d been on the receiving end of lectures from that voice ever since he’d joined the covert whenever he’d done something stupid or reckless enough to end up under the tender mercy of the covert’s medic.

The thing he was having trouble with was reconciling the familiar voice with the alarmingly cheerful Pantoran woman in front of him.

“Aikan?” he asked, uncertain, once he managed to find his voice.

“Good to see your brain is still mostly intact,” Aikan replied, scanner in one hand as she began her usual medic routine.

“What,” he started and stopped, baffled. “Your helmet.”

“Was inconvenient,” Aikan finished neatly, fiddling with something above the bed. “Now that it’s not such a big deal, I figured I’d keep it off whilst I dealt with my more difficult patients.”

She finished what she was doing and gave him a look that dared to argue with her. He didn’t. He could hardly fault her decided to remove her helmet when he’d been willing to accept the same fate only a day ago.

Or maybe a few days, judging by her choice of words so far.

“I resent the implication that I’m difficult,” he said eventually and Aikan relaxed, which was confusing. Since when did his opinion matter that much to her? “How long have I been out?”

“Two days,” she replied. “Marin said something about a healing trance and by now I know better than to question all this Force stuff.”

She waved a hand vaguely to indicate exactly what she thought of the Force interfering with her knowledge of medical care.

“Right,” he said, because that was news to him.

Yet another thing to ask Marin about, along with what exactly had happened in the facility because the last thing he remembered clearly was killing Damien Zuril.

Apparently sensing his thoughts drifting to less pleasant things, Riye sent another wave of affection and Din relaxed back against the bed, holding his son close and just let himself enjoy the moment, with Riye’s presence encompassing his. It felt almost as though their bond had somehow become deeper, stronger, not that Din was complaining when he could sense the words Riye left unsaid.

“ _Ni kar'tayl gar darasuum_ , Riye,” he replied, barely a whisper, and although the Mando’a words might be unfamiliar to his son, the intent behind them was not.

Riye let out a happy trill and burrowed into his side.

“So, how are you feeling?” Aikan asked above him, putting the scanner down.

“Fine,” he replied. She gave him a look of disbelief but for once he was being completely honest with her. “No, really, I feel fine. Good, even. Just a little sore.”

Aikan hummed.

“Your scans are looking good,” she conceded. “If you can stand and walk fine, I could be persuaded to release you.”

Din was pushing himself up to sit before she could finish her sentence and, a moment later, he was standing with Riye held securely in his grasp.

He took a few steps, keeping near the bed just in case because he was willing to admit that his legs were a little weaker than he would like, but he suspected that it was nothing a solid meal and a good night’s rest couldn’t solve.

His stomach, after two days without food, took a moment to inform him that the idea of a meal was appealing and he was thankful that, unlike Aikan, he hadn’t removed his helmet because his cheeks were burning.

Aikan outright laughed at him.

“Yeah,” she said, “you’re fine. Go on,” she tipped her head towards the door, “consider yourself free of my care. Go and get some food in you.”

“Yes ma’am,” he replied with a mock salute and turned to leave.

“Oh, wait!” He froze and squeezed his eyes shut. He’d been so close to escaping. “You almost forgot this.”

He twisted and found Aikan standing behind him holding out the hilt of the darksaber with a knowing grin on her face.

“Um, thanks.”

Hesitantly, he reached and took it from her, keeping it out of Riye’s reach, and clipping it onto his belt where the missing weight from his own saber was making itself known. The fact that she was willing to give it back to him he decided to take as a good sign.

He was halfway out of the door when he heard it.

“You’re welcome, _Mand’alor_.”

He stopped dead, foot hovering off the ground and whipped around again, incredulous. Aikan’s smile was mischievous but her eyes were deadly serious.

“What did you just call me?”

He found the Armourer sat in the mess hall with Marin, Cara, and the majority of the council and he was fully intending to go over and give them all a piece of his mind. _Mand’alor_ , seriously? But before he could get further than past the first table, the room fell silent and all eyes turned to him.

Oh, he was really going to have words with them.

Then the cheering starting, and the clapping, and then a few of the braver Mandalorians were coming up and offering their thanks in person and he was overwhelmed by the sudden reverence in which they seemed to be holding him.

By the time he had managed to fight his way through the crowd and reach the council, it was as though his two days of rest had meant nothing and he was exhausted again.

He slumped into the free chair next to Marin and set Riye down. Someone, who he would later have to remember to thank, pushed a few mugs of broth and a straw over and he busied himself with working his way through a hot meal whilst he worked out exactly what he wanted to say to the group of Mandalorian clan leaders and _al’verde_ who had apparently decided to name him _Mand’alor_ in his absence.

Having practically inhaled his soup, he took a moment to make sure that Marin had Riye in hand and that his son was also eating before turning to the Armourer.

“Who was it?”

“Who was it what?” Paz responded with his best attempt as innocence and if it weren’t for Riye beside him in Alema in Paz’s lap, Din would have cursed.

“You know exactly what,” he snapped. “Would you care to explain why I woke up and found someone had decided to name me _Mand’alor_?”

A few awkward glances were exchanged but it was the Armourer who spoke up, and whilst he was glad that she was alive and safe and not dead at the hands of Zuril, part of him was tempted to kill her himself.

“It was a group decision.”

“Well, I don’t want it,” he said.

“We know.”

That stopped him in his tracks.

“You knew and you still did it?”

He knew his voice was rising, a mixture of anger and hysteria hitting him all at once and it took the duel influence of both Riye and Marin through the bonds to calm him down again.

“You’ve made your position on the topic clear in the past,” the Armourer acknowledged. “However, circumstances have changed and we are in agreement that you are the best person to lead us.”

A ripple passed around the group as Din turned his attention to each of them in turn, hoping that one of them might speak up and disagree, or suggest someone else, but they all remained damningly silent. When he reached Marin, she put up her hands.

“Don’t give me that look, I’m not on the council.”

“But you agree with them,” he argued.

“I do,” she said, forestalling any argument with a look that begged him to listen. “They’re right. The circumstances have changed. The survival of the Mandalorian people is no longer a secret, the old animosity between your people and mine is gone, you have a whole group of foundlings who are Force-sensitive. You wanted to change things, Din,” she said softly and he felt himself wavering in the face of her logic, “here’s your chance to do so.”

“The old style of leadership doesn’t suit this new age,” the Armourer added. “I said that we would need people with your flexibility and I hold to that now. You have led us well so far; you won’t lead us astray now.”

Din swallowed. He hadn’t even considered his actions over the past week to be leadership but, looking back, he could see how they might have been interpreted that way.

He looked at Riye and Alema, content amongst his people. He could feel how Alema was already blossoming under Paz’s guidance, recovering from the trauma of losing her family.

They could give them stability, all of them, a place of safety within which to grow. Maybe being _Mand’alor_ wouldn’t be so bad if he could ensure that the next generation didn’t grow up in fear of war, hiding from the remains of the Empire.

“Also,” Paz mused aloud, “the darksaber is traditionally the symbol of the _Mand’alor_ and I can’t imagine anyone who was with us fighting the _darjetii_ is going to forget the sight of you wielding it anytime soon.”

Din sighed. He wasn’t going to be able to change their minds, he knew that now, but he wasn’t going to accept unless they agreed to a couple of conditions.

“I still don’t like it,” he said, but it a weak refute at best.

“That’s not a no,” Samirr noted, looking smug.

“I have conditions,” he said.

The Armourer leant forward, mimicking his pose across the table. “Name them.”

“I’m not doing this alone. I want you all to stay on as part of the council.” He took a moment to enjoy the look of surprise on Makana’s face.

“All of us?” she said, startled.

“We may have come from different houses, different clans, we may have different understandings and beliefs about what it means to follow the creed, but we’ve proved we can work past that. I don’t know who else will come, who else is out there, but if they decide to join us, I want them to understand that no matter what, we are all Mandalorian,” he said. “Besides, I want people who aren’t afraid to tell me when I’m wrong.”

“No problem there,” Paz grumbled.

Din restrained a snort with difficultly. Some things never changed and improved relationship aside, he had no doubt that he and Paz would continue to disagree about things for years to come.

Makana blinked and shared a look with Samirr, after a moment she seemed to settle.

“We’d be honoured,” she said.

He nodded in acknowledgement and turned his attention to the next issue.

“We’ll need a new _beroya_.”

“About that.” Cara, who had been conspicuously silent suddenly spoke up from down the table, looking uncomfortable but determined. “I’ve got a lot of time on my hands and not much to do with it, I’ve enjoyed travelling with you and I’ve got the skills.”

Din stared at her. He couldn’t help it. There was an insinuation behind her words that he wasn’t sure he’d understood correctly.

“Cara,” he said, “you—”

“I’m not saying I want to swear to your creed,” Cara said, answering the question he hadn’t managed to get out, “not yet, at least, but I’m considering it, if you’ll have me.”

Din looked around the table but no one voiced any objections.

“You’d better take good clear of the Crest,” he finally said.

Cara grinned, accepting his words and the offer with ease. “Of course,” she said.

“Anything else?” the Armourer asked after a few moments of silence.

“I want the Force-sensitive foundlings to train with the D’ai, with Marin,” he said. Then, he remembered that he hadn’t actually asked his _cyare_ if she was on board with this. “If that’s alright with you?” he asked, turning to her. “It’s just, I’m not sure I could teach them as well as you could.”

Marin, thankfully, took the fumbled question with grace and a teasing poke down the bond.

“We’d be happy to have them,” she said. “I’m sure we can come to an arrangement, maybe some of my instructors could visit regularly, so that they aren’t away from their families.”

It was exactly the right thing to say and if the Mandalorian council hadn’t already accepted Marin that would have done it.

“Thank you,” he said, as he subtly reached out to take her hand under the table and gave it a squeeze.

With his other hand, he gently pulled Riye towards him and away from the temptation of Makana’s half-finished plate, soothing his son’s protests with promises of his favourite snack once they got back to their rooms. Snacks and then sleep, he reckoned, unsure if all of the tiredness he was feeling was his own or if some of it was coming from Riye.

“Is there anything else, _Mand’alor_?” Samirr asked, picking up on his slumping posture.

“No,” he said, resigning himself to the title, “that’s everything. If you don’t mind, I need to take Riye, it’s time for his nap.”

The council, his council, nodded in agreement and not one of them so much as blinked when he reclaimed Marin’s hand to help her to her feet and offered to show her to the guest chambers which were conveniently on the way to his own rooms.

As the doors slid open, Makana suddenly called out.

“Oh, we forgot to ask, what colour to you want your _jaig_ eyes to be?”

Din paused as he absorbed that and then sped up his pace, pulling Marin behind him. He would deal with it later. First though, he was going to get some sleep before anyone else could drop a bombshell like that on him.

The pieces fit together smoothly, crystal slotting neatly into place. He had wondered, at first, why his adventure in the Nova caves had left him with two kyber crystals, but perhaps even then the Force had known.

The final fastening snapped together and, as he had a long time ago, he held the completed saber out for inspection.

Marin took it from him and checked it over thoroughly. As much as he trusted that he had built it correctly, he knew how quickly and easily things could go wrong with this sort of weapon if something was out of place.

With a satisfied hum, Marin handed the saber back to him.

“Perfectly balanced,” she teased.

It was nice to have his saber back. Whilst the darksaber had served its purpose, it hadn’t felt right in the way his own saber did. Marin had said that it was probably down to the crystals, which weren’t attuned to him in the way the ones in his own saber were, and he’d taken her at her word.

“Shall I give it a go?”

“Be my guest.”

Marin indicated the empty practice room and he stood, igniting the saber to be greeted by a familiar golden glow, and began to run through the first set of katas that she had taught him.

“You’re getting good at that,” she said, eyes tracking his movements with a pleased expression.

“I had a good teacher,” he replied and couldn’t help but enjoy the way the compliment made her blush.

He finished up the set and held the final pose for a moment, appreciating the way the Force flowed through the movements and around him. To think, if he hadn’t changed his mind back on Nevarro, he may never have known about the gift hidden deep inside him.

Now he had his son, with whom he had a deeper bond than he had ever thought possible, and he had the Force.

Carefully, he deactivated his saber, and hooked it back onto his belt, where it belonged.

“It’s nearly time, isn’t it?” Marin asked, joining him.

Din thought of what awaited him in the forge, of the mantle he was about to take on in front of the covert, of the tin of paint in the colour he had eventually chosen. He had wanted to get this done, get his saber built, before he went in and faced what was to come.

“Stay,” he said, pulling her in for a brief Keldabe kiss. One day, he promised himself, he’d kiss her properly. “At least for the ceremony.”

“Alright, _cyar’ika_ ,” she agreed easily, smiling as she pulled away.

Mando’a had never sounded so beautiful.

It was a shame she had to leave, but he understood. She had her duties on Nova just as he was soon to have his here. It just meant that they would have to visit each other as often as they could, made easier by Marin’s agreement to teach the foundlings, and they had the bond which was stronger than ever. They would make it work.

They would say their goodbyes once the ceremony was done.

“Ready?” Marin asked.

He took a deep breath and let it out slowly, releasing his anxiety the Force as best he could and letting it float away.

“Ready.”

Cara was waiting outside of the doors and she joined them as they walked through the empty corridors to the forge.

“Good talk with your girlfriend?” she asked, quiet enough that Marin wouldn’t overhear.

“Yes, actually,” he replied and delighted in Cara’s stunned expression. She couldn’t tease him for that anymore.

Marin and Cara broke off as they reached the forge and he walked on alone, through the gathered group of Mandalorians, brushing a hand across Riye, held safely in Paz’s arms for the duration of the ceremony, until it was just him, Samirr, and the Armourer at the front of the room on the raised platform by the council table.

His voice was steady as he made his vows as _Mand’alor_ to lead and protect his people, though he was glad to be able to sit for the next part. He managed not to fidget as the Armourer carefully painted the jaig eyes on his helmet, the colour as close as he could find to his son’s ears.

And then it was over and to the cries of ‘ _oya_!’ from his people, a new age for the Mandalorian people was begun.

“Where’s Nova?”

The stars were bright and clear and what little cloud cover there had been during the day had melted away, leaving them with an unimpeded view of the night sky.

The clearing was their spot, their little haven away from the covert where they could have some time to themselves and Din could take off his helmet and enjoy the fresh air and the company of his son.

He pointed out the appropriate star.

“There it is, do you see?”

Riye nodded against him, ears brushing up against his chin with the movement, eyes sighting down his raised arm. Din had no idea how Riye found lying on his chest plate comfortable, he’d even brought along a blanket in an attempt to make it softer, but Riye didn’t seem to mind and just wanted to be close.

Who was Din to deny him that?

“What’s star in Mando’a?” Riye asked after a moment.

“ _Ka’ra_ ,” he said.

Riye giggled and repeated the word.

“That sounds like Cara,” his son said, clearly thinking of his favourite _ba'vodu_.

Din hummed in acknowledgement. He’d never really thought of it that way but the two words did sound similar.

“Have I ever told you the story about the stars and the ancient Mandalorian kings?” he asked.

“No,” Riye replied, bouncing lightly in his arms. “Story, please!”

Din smiled, running his free hand through his hair and settling his arm behind his head. The chill of the evening wasn’t too bad and they had the blanket, he could afford to stay out with Riye a little longer.

“Alright, _ad’ika_ , just the one story though, then bedtime” he said, settling Riye more firmly against him.

He looked up at the stars above them, where Marin and Cara were travelling and his ancestors were watching over them, and began to speak.

**Five Years Later**

Ike Brenai had heard the rumours, but he hadn’t really believed that they were true.

Now, looking around the shipyard on Bakura, seeing people in Mandalorian armour walking around, relaxed and settled under the guard of a few strategically posted sentries, he allowed himself to begin to believe.

When they had first picked up the Mando’a message, the rallying call of someone claiming to be the _Mand’alor_ , he’d assuming it was a trick or a trap.

“ _Su’cuy ner vod._ You must be Brenai,” the young man standing in front of him clad in beskar armour said in greeting.

Behind him, the small group of Mandalorian warriors that he had gathered were looking around in awe and it took some effort to bring himself to focus on the conversation.

“I am,” he managed.

“I’m Tycho,” the boy said. “I’m here to take you to meet the _Mand’alor_.”

Well, Ike thought, that was easy.

“Lead the way.”

He followed Tycho through the entrance over which the mythosaur was carved and through the caves into the base proper. It was much larger than he had expected based upon the outside and it was bustling as Mandalorians from at least seven different clans mingled, talked, sparred, and played. Some were wearing their helmets, like Tycho was, others weren’t, like himself.

“How many of us are there?” he asked.

“Nearly two thousand,” Tycho replied. “Since we sent out the message three years ago, small groups have been arriving. It’s taken a while, but we never lost hope that more would come.”

Ike could see why. He’d heard rumours of plans to take back Mandalore and reclaim their homeland after the purge of the Empire and he hadn’t thought it likely, but now, seeing the strength they had in numbers, he could see how it might be possible.

Tycho came to a stop outside a small room that the label above the door identified as a training room.

“One moment, I'll just let them know that you’re here,” Tycho said, reaching for the door control.

The doors slid partially open and Tycho took one step before his brain caught up with his ears and he came to an abrupt stop. Ike was about to ask what was wrong when he heard it. Sounds of exertion, rhythmic and repetitive echoed around the room, which wasn’t necessarily unusual or out of place, but still, something about it gave him pause.

“I’m getting too old for this,” said a man’s voice, breathing heavily between words.

Then a woman’s voice, equally out of breath.

“I have to disagree, _cyar’ika_.”

There was a pause and then the man spoke up again.

“It’s not quite—”

“Is it the grip? The position?”

Tycho was now distinctly uncomfortable next to him and Ike was in a similar state of disbelief. Surely, they weren’t doing that?

"Maybe the speed?"

Tycho choked and Ike felt a flush creeping up the back of his neck.

“Length actually, I think.”

He had to give the kid credit for bravery because Tycho swallowed, straightened, and popped his head quickly around the door.

“Oh, thank Manda,” he gasped.

Ike followed him and saw, to his relief, that nothing untoward was happening. Instead there was a man in Mandalorian armour with green jaig eyes painted on his helmet holding the darksaber of all things in one hand, and a _jetii_ weapon with a golden yellow blade in the other, sparring with someone who was wielding another _jetii_ weapon with dual blades of bright teal.

Across the room, a group of younglings were watching with wide eyes.

The woman, a Togruta, wasn’t wearing any armour at all apart from a pauldron upon which a mudhorn signet had been welded.

“Show me again?” the woman asked.

The man began to run through a series of movements and stopped partway through when something apparently went wrong.

“It’s there.”

“I think you’re right,” the woman agreed, checking his grip. “It might be worth trying this with a shoto instead of your saber.”

Tycho cleared his throat and the room came to a sudden stop as they realised that they had company.

“Tycho?” the man said.

“ _Mand’alor_ ,” Tycho replied and Ike blinked. This was the Mand’alor? He wasn’t exactly sure what he had expected but it hadn’t been this, that was for certain. Not that this, whatever it was, was a bad thing, it was just, well, different. “The ships are here with the latest arrivals.”

The woman turned off her sabers and smiled at them before turning and ushering the children towards the door.

“You’d better take this one, _riduur_ ,” she said to the _Mand’alor_ , who was clipping the darksaber and the _jetii_ weapon onto his belt.

“My turn next?” one of the children asked on the way out. He was small, with big green ears and Ike had never seen anything like him, but the woman scooped him up happily and the kid settled easily into her arms.

“If it’s ok with your _buir_ ,” she said.

“Fine with me, Marin,” the _Mand’alor_ said.

The child cheered and the woman, Marin, offered him a welcoming nod as they passed him in the doorway.

Ike watched the proceedings with a mixture of awe, bafflement, and tentative hope.

Then the _Mand’alor_ was approaching him and offering an arm in greeting. Still stunned, it took Ike a moment to return the hold.

“Welcome to Bakura, _vod_ ,” the _Mand’alor_ greeted.

“ _Mand’alor_ ,” he replied.

He couldn’t see it, but he was pretty sure the man was smiling too.

“Please,” he said, “call me Din.”

_**Now with wonderful art of Marin with credit to the equally wonderful Red Velvet Panda** _

_**(check out their[tumblr](https://red-velvet-panda.tumblr.com/)!)** _

_**** _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Mando'a translations
> 
> ni kar'tayl gar darasuum - I love you (lit. I hold you in my heart forever)  
> cyare - beloved  
> riduur - partner, spouse, husband, wife
> 
> jaig eyes - jaig eyes, short for 'jai'galaar'la sur'haii'se' or "shriek-hawk eyes" are a Mandalorian sigil bestowed by clan leaders as a mark of honor, awarded for particular acts of bravery.

**Author's Note:**

> I figured that by now we were all owed some fluff.  
> And a trailer.  
> (But let's not talk about that.)


End file.
